What the hell?
by Obsidian Buterfly
Summary: A Fay-centric fic. I don't really feel like writing up a summary for this thing right now so just check it out inside. Warnings: AU, post-Nihon but pre-Clow arc. OCs but they don't play a major part. Enjoy.
1. How in the world did i end up ths way?

_**A/N: hey all. 'Sup? I'm back with a new fic... Again. ;) Hehe. This one is also kinda Fai-centric but some of it will be told from the POV of Kurogane. Basically I'll be exploring Fai's relationship with the group and how he has changed overall through the journey, takes place after Nihon but before Clow arc. Not many spoilers will be there, I think.**_

_**I'll try to keep them in character but that all depends on how I want this to end. Anyhow I think I've started to ramble so I'll just stop and let you read on. Hope you enjoy it.**_

_**Chapter 1: **__**(Yes it's a multi-chaptered story but a relatively short one)**_

_How in the world had he ended up like this? _The blond vampire thought in amusement as he assessed his current situation. He let out a small chuckle as he turned his head to look above him only to see his own pale skinned hand clutching onto a bent, rusty guardrail of the once grand but now completely ruined palace balcony. This particular balcony overlooked the vast seashore situated at the bottom of the rocky cliff.

The site for this castle had been, no doubt, chosen by someone with a great taste for scenic views. He could almost imagine the spectacular sight this place could have presented in the height of its grandeur. Now, however, it was no more than wreckage, abandoned by the royal family almost a century ago due to the vulnerability of this place in times of war, the castle was left to face the elements of nature giving in when no one was around to maintain it.

A small sigh escaped his lips as he felt his other arm beginning to numb slightly. Why you may ask? Well that was thanks to the fact that it was currently holding onto a certain brown haired teenager, an _unconscious _brown haired teenager actually.

"Syaoran-kun?" he asked hopefully, thinking that maybe the boy might have come to by now.

Nothing but silence greeted his words. The boy was still out cold. He was not sure how much longer he could hold on like this. Sure, he had his vampire strength to rely on but even those creatures had their limits. And even if by some miracle he managed to hold on infinitely, sooner or later, the guardrail would give. After all the combined weight of a vampire and a seventeen year old teenager were bound to break that rusty thing at some point.

Oh, If only he could wake the younger boy somehow. But as it was turning out, Syaoran was not returning to the land of the living any time soon. Pulling them both up was out of the question, his hold on the rusty rail was not suitable for that sort of action. He would have to think up of something else.

"Syaoran-kun, wake up." The single eyed blond called once more, even though he knew it was useless, but it never hurt to try, did it? He couldn't call out to Kurogane for help, since the ninja was not there. He was back in town, asking around the place along with Mokona. Even though Kyle had kidnapped the princess's body, they still had some feathers to look for.

One might wonder how the hell had those two landed in that situation in the first place. Well the answer was quite simple actually. The three of them had split up in order to ask around the town for information on the feather, hoping to cover more ground that way, deciding to meet back at the motel at night. Fay had heard about a ghost haunting this ruined castle from some of the townsfolk in the bar and had decided to investigate the matter. He had gotten directions from the barmaid and headed here in a rented car. Apparently, so had Syaoran because the ex-magician had sensed his presence the minute he entered the crumbling building. Fay had made his way up here only to find Syaoran losing consciousness and going over the guardrail.

The vampire had rushed for the boy, ignoring the other presence there; he would worry about that after he had caught Syaoran. Unfortunately the other presence, whoever it was had not agreed with his timely jumping in.

"Ugh…" Fay let out a small grunt as a sharp stab of pain shot through his arm holding onto Syaoran. At the same time, the guardrail groaned and bent some more, causing Fay to slip down a couple of inches or so. Kurogane was definitely going to flip if something happened to either of them. Well he could worry about that later on, right now he had to focus on maintaining his grip onto both, Syaoran and the guardrail.

"Syaoran-kun?" Fay said urgently, trying to will him into wakefulness as the numbness in his arm began to increase. If it continued at this rate, he was definitely going to lose his grip on the boy, promising him a certain death at the bottom of the cliff. He couldn't let him die, that much was for sure. The boy still had some unfinished business to attend to after all.

Maybe he could swing them up the balcony? It might work but if it failed, he was dooming them both to their deaths. Well he would wait for some more time before trying out _that_ idea. Maybe by some dumb luck, Kurogane might have found out about the ghost story and come to investigate this place when they wouldn't have returned. Hoping that this was the case, Fay willed himself to keep on holding on.

How ironic it would be, to have come so far and die this way. Fay's thoughts drifted to his past and the journey, how he had changed from a person who hid behind masks, alone and distant from others despite the happy-go-lucky act, not caring whether he lived or died to someone who cared about others and was in turn cared and worried over by others, actually valuing his life and wanting to live.

How he had changed from that unlucky and hated twin to a person who was actually loved by someone, changed from someone who didn't matter at all to someone who actually mattered. Would Kurogane still be mad at him if he died? Even if he was no longer the person he was at the start of this journey?

The creaking and groaning of the guardrail brought him out of his train of thoughts as it bent some more, lowering them yet another few inches.

"You better get here fast Kuro-tan." He muttered as he tightened his grip onto the rail. His other arm was almost completely numb by now but due to some miracle, he was still holding onto Syaoran. Another wave of pain shot through his arm causing him to let out a strangled yell. "Hurry uuup!!!" he whined. For almost half an hour, Fay held onto the rusty rail but it was becoming more and more obvious that Kurogane was not going to show up anytime soon.

"Syaoran-kun…" Fay said in a strained voice as he tried to keep his sweaty hand from slipping. "Here… goes nothing." He said as he took in a deep breath and swung off the balcony wall, using the guardrail as his momentary leverage Fay gained some momentum in the direction that he wanted before letting go off the rail completely, said object breaking off and falling down almost a split second later. Still moving upwards due to his momentum Fay shifted Syaoran from one hand to the other and forcefully swung the boy up over the edge, the boy barely making it, lying dangerously close to the end.

Fay himself made to grab for the edge hanging onto it for dear life by the tips of his fingers. He was completely exhausted and did not have any strength left to pull himself up. All he could do now was keep on hanging like this till someone came or Syaoran woke up. This plan might even have worked if Fay's hands hadn't been so sweaty. It was only a matter of few minutes before his fingers slipped causing the vampire to fall towards the bottom like dead weight.

The only person who could have saved him then was himself but the vampire lacked the energy to do that. The only thing he was able to do was turn slightly so that he could brace his fall. That was the only thing he remembered doing as the world around him began to fade to black as the wind rushed through his hair making them flap wildly about his face as the ground rushed closer and closer to greet him…

-0-

Fay groaned in pain as he tried to open his eyes. Above him he could the stars twinkling in pitch black sky, the sounds of waves crashing on the nearby seashore was the only sound he heard. Each and part of his body was screaming in pain.

_Wonder why my wounds haven't healed already?_ Fay thought weakly as darkness claimed him once more.

-0-

When he came to once more, Fay thought he heard someone talking nearby but was unable to determine just who exactly it was that had found him.

Fay tried to reach for the sword lying close to his side. It was actually Syaoran's which had fallen down earlier when he had been hanging off the balcony rail. Luckily he had fallen right next to it but when Fay tried to make an attempt at reaching for it, his arm protested strongly by shooting sharp stabs of pain through its entire length. _It's still broken._ Fay thought in dismay as he grew more aware of his surroundings.

"… can't just leave him like that." he heard a somewhat familiar voice speak close by. Fay couldn't quite place it but he somehow knew the owner of this voice. But he was also sure that the owner was not from this world but someplace else.

"Of course we can." A second voice spoke in a cold tone, "he's not our problem. We have to leave now; we can't carry around a half-dead vampire across dimensions along with us. It will just slow us down."

"But how did he get in this state?" the first voice mused thoughtfully. "He's not healing and something tells me he didn't just jump off this cliff. Did someone attack him?"

"It could be the hunter." The second voice growled, "We have to leave. Now!"

"We can't just leave him like that." protested the voice.

"We can." Said the second one in an icy-tone, "and we will."

"No we can't" the first one spoke firmly.

"So… it was the… vampire twins… who found me." Fay managed to croak weakly as he tried to move but waves of pure agony washed over him. "S-Subaru and… Kamui, right?"

"Take it easy, Fay." Subaru said gently as he crouched down next to him, "from the looks of it, you are not in any condition to move."

"It… seems that way…" Fay let out a weak and strangled chuckle.

"What happened to you?" the vampire asked.

"Came to the… ca-stle looking for… Sakura-chan's feather… someone attacked Say-oran-kun… he was about to fall but… I caught him…" Fay said weakly as his weak body begged for him to sleep. "I… fell off the bal-cony… in the process."

"Why aren't you healing?" Kamui asked all of a sudden.

"I don't know." Fay gave a slurred reply, "I'm going to… rest for… a while."

"Okay," Subaru said, not unkindly as he happened to look down at the ex-magician only to see his visible eye role to the back of his head. This caused the vampire's heart to skip a beat as his gut clenched in fear. "Fay. Hey Fay, wake up."

"What's wrong?" Kamui asked as he looked at his worried twin.

"I think he might have a concussion." Subaru answered as he shook the blond by his shoulders causing said blond to groan weakly, "Uhh… I want to… sleep…"

"No you need to stay awake." Kamui said as he joined his brother in his attempts to wake up the blond. Subaru would be really upset if he died. Though he would never admit it out loud, but Kamui was glad that Subaru had decided to not let them leave just then. For some reason, he didn't want the vampire to die either. It was just then that his keen senses picked up shouts in the distance.

His head shot up at the sound. It just a few seconds later that he heard it again, a high pitched worried voice, "Fay! Where are you?"

"Fay-san. Are you here?" he heard a second voice call out.

"Oye mage!" he heard a third voice. So it seemed his companions had arrived as well. About time they got there. Any longer and they might have had to take Fay to someplace else, since they couldn't have stayed there for much longer. The vampire had lost a large amount of blood. He could smell it all over the place.

As he got to his feet, he saw a small beam of light wave about in the distance.

"I'll go get them." Kamui said dully as he stopped his twin from leaving.

"Mage, where the he…" Kurogane stiffened as he felt the strange yet familiar aura come closer. Instinctively his hand moved towards the hilt of his sword.

"He's over there." Kamui said in an uninterested tone as he stopped next to the ninja before turning around to lead the way. "He fell off the cliff."

"Fay!" Mokona cried out in alarm as it hopped off its perch on Syaoran's shoulder and closer to the vampire on the ground. He was currently covered in Subaru's coat in an attempt to keep the blond vampire warm.

At first glance one may have assumed that he was merely sleeping but upon closer inspection anyone could tell that the one-eyed vampire was actually injured. Badly, one may add. In the light of the flashlight that Syaoran was shining on Fay, Kurogane could easily see that one of his arms were lying at an odd angle, no doubt broken, his blond hair were also matted with half-dried blood. But those were only the injuries visible; the real damage was actually concealed by his clothes.

"Fay…" Mokona cried as it touched the unresponsive blonds face.

"Damn it mage!" Kurogane growled angrily as he lifted off the jacket covering the blond to check for any other visible injuries, "what the hell did you do this time?"

"We need to get him to a doctor, Kurogane-san." Syaoran said as he picked up his sword from the ground and sealed it back.

"There's one back in town, I spoke with him just this morning." Kurogane said as he gently picked Fay off the ground careful to support his entire body with Subaru's and Syaoran's help, "we just need to get him to the car."

Fay, of course, had long since succumbed to the darkness enveloping his entire being, thus unable to hear or feel what was taking place around him. He only knew that someone familiar had arrived before even that information was shoved to the background as his brain shut off.

_**A/N: so how was it? Good or bad? Will Fay survive? Knowing me, who knows? Hehehe… except for me that is.**_

_**Ok so till I post the next chapter, you people better review or else… trust me, you don't wanna know.**_


	2. You better make it

_**A/N: I'm adding this little note to thank all those who have reviewed and/or added this fic to their alerts or favs. Thankyou guys. I've gotten a really good response for this story which is why I'll be having a poll on my profile to see how long should i make this story since initially i had planned to write down four chapters at max but now if you want i can make it longer.  
**_

__Despite the twin vampires' excellent sight and Syaoran's own flashlight it took them almost twenty minutes to locate the car. Gently setting Fay in the back Kurogane climbed behind the wheel, Mokona hopped to the back seat, trying to say close to Fay. Syaoran on the other hand, got in the other car which Fay had brought over with him.

"Take the road to the right, it's a shortcut." Kamui told the two before he stepped back from the car. Subaru walked closer to the car that Syaoran was in and handed a small bag to him before returning to his twin. A rainbow colored haze began to appear around the twins, their bodies dissolving the minute it made contact. A couple of seconds later they were gone, along with the smoke.

Kurogane wordlessly started the car, Syaoran mimicking his actions as the two set off in the direction the vampire had pointed out. The castle was located at an almost two hours distance from the town along the road that he had taken earlier. The one that Kamui had told him about resulted in them making it back with half an hour to spare. Not _that_ much of a shortcut one would think but to a man struggling for every single breath, it meant the difference between life and death.

Once back at in town, Kurogane stopped the car next to their rented room, Syaoran jumping out of his car which he had parked behind Kurogane's. Together the two carefully moved the unconscious Fay inside and lay him on one of the two single beds in the room. Syaoran glanced at the only clock in the room, the hands read 4 a.m.

"Kurogane-san, do you know where he doctor lives?" Syaoran asked as the ninja covered Fay with the blanket.

"No." Kurogane replied, "I know where his clinic is though."

"He won't be at his clinic at this time of the night." Syaoran said dejectedly. "It doesn't open for another three hours."

"What will we do?" Mokona asked as tears welled up in his eyes. "Yuuko can't help us here." **(I haven't thought of a reason yet. She just can't. Wait I got it. It's cuz I said so… what? If she could this story would have finished in a couple more paragraphs.)**

"We'll just have to keep him warm and comfortable till the doctor arrives." Kurogane said as he pulled a chair closer to Fay's bed and sat down.

Kurogane inwardly grimaced as he thought how long three the next three hours would be. It might not have mattered much had Fay been in a better condition but seeing as he wasn't… why the hell were his wounds not healing? Hadn't the witch said that vampires possessed great recuperating abilities? He had seen their demonstrations more than once in infinity but why the hell were they not working anymore? Why was the blond lying before him breathing in short rasps as sweat beaded his body?

"You better pull through this mage." Kurogane muttered as he looked at the almost chalk white vampire before him. He had no doubt lost a lot of blood but it wasn't like they could do much until the doctor got there. So they waited. After a while though Kurogane told Syaoran to get some sleep, telling he would wake him up when it was time to go get the doctor. The boy might have thought about protesting but what he was told anyway.

"S-Syaoran-k-kun…' if he hadn't trained his entire life to pick up even the faintest of sounds, Kurogane would have definitely missed that weak and strained voice.

"How is… he?" Fay asked as he struggled to keep his eye open.

"The kid is fine." Kurogane almost sighed in relief as he looked at the dull gold eye staring at him.

"That's… a relief." Fay said softly as his eye drooped once again.

"What the hell happened to you on the other hand?" Kurogane asked, his deep voice angry yet sad at the same time.

"Someone… attacked Syaoran-kun… at the castle… I caught him… when he al-most fell…" Fay managed to say after a while, his eye still closed, "I tried… to hold on but… my hand grew sw-eaty… I slipped but atleast… Syaoran-kun is… alright."

"If you weren't in such a condition, I would have punched you by now." Kurogane sighed as his gaze travelled back to the wall clock. Still one hour left.

"Yeah…" Fay let out a weak chuckle.

"You better not die on us now mage." Kurogane growled in warning. "Or I'll beat you up. Really bad."

"You'll have… to catch me f-irst… Kuro-tan." In the dull light filtering in through the window, Kurogane could easily see the fresh blood seeping through the temporary bandages that they had tied around Fay's broken arm after he had set it straight. The bone had been poking out of his flesh near his wrist.

"Will Fay be okay?" Mokona asked quietly as it hopped on the bed next to Fay's pillow, also stained in crimson.

"He won't die." Kurogane said firmly, his voice strong and confident. However that was not how he felt on the inside. Seeing him weak and injured like that, Kurogane was reminded of Tokyo. The world everything had changed. Back then he had forced Fay to live by turning him into a vampire, but he couldn't do that now. He couldn't turn a vampire into a vampire all over again.

Back then he had failed to keep them safe but what about now? If Fay hadn't caught him, Syaoran would have surely been dead by now, even if he was no longer healing, Kurogane could easily tell that it was because of the vampire blood in his veins that Fay was still alive. No ordinary human being would have been able to survive _that _fall. Kurogane was brought out of his thoughts by the sound of someone getting up.

"I'll go get the doctor." Syaoran said softly as he headed out the door with the car keys.

After what seemed like an eternity but in fact was no more than fifteen minutes, Syaoran walked back, a red haired man with a small beard walking behind him, a large black bag in his hand. The man was wearing the same brown tweed coat and khaki pants that he had been wearing the other day. A pair of glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. The man entered the room and surveyed his surrounding for a few seconds before moving forward and setting the bag down in the seat that Kurogane had just vacated.

The doctor dug around in it pulling out a thermometer and pen flashlight. Putting the thermometer in Fay's mouth, he flashed the light in Fay's eye. The doctor remained quite when he observed the unusual eye color and put the flashlight back in the bag. After a while he pulled the thermometer out and took the reading before returning it to the bag.

He pulled on a pair of white gloves before he prodded and applied on various parts of the vampire's body, getting different responses varying from a sharp intake of breath to gasp to a small grunt or a cough. The man then pulled the blanket away from his body and cut through Fay's black button up shirt, exposing a severely swollen and bruised skin. Digging out an antiseptic bottle and cotton from his bag the doctor cut away through the temporary makeshift bandage before setting about to clean his wounds and broken skin.

A small round hole in the right side of Fay's shoulder drew Kurogane's attention.

"Is your friend by any chance," the doctor asked quietly as he cleaned the hole, "a vampire?"

"Do they exist?" Syaoran asked politely, hoping to get some information before replying. Some of the cultures feared vampire enough to have angry mobs chasing after anyone even remotely suspicious. They couldn't deal with that sort of crowd when Fay was injured so badly and they couldn't leave that world just yet either, Fay was in condition to travel; besides they still had to find the feather.

"In some parts of the world, yes." the doctor replied, "I never thought I would find one here of all places."

"Why is that?" the boy asked curiously.

"The vampire moved further up north after the war. They mostly live in seclusion now." The doctor replied as he set the bloody piece of cotton in a small container and set about to cleaning other cuts.

"Oh." Syaoran said before his eyes traveled to the wound that the doctor had just cleaned. "Is that… a bullet wound?" Syaoran asked in shock.

The doctor nodded, another piece of the puzzle set in place. Fay had been shot, that was why he couldn't have pulled them both up that balcony. He had been weakened by the impact. "he's lost a lot of blood, from the looks of it quite a few bones in his body have broken as well, that one being he major concern." The doctor pointed to the broken arm, "but I have to take the bullet out as well." he told them as he widened the wound in his shoulder.

Seeing Fay scrunch up his face in pain, Syaoran turned away quietly before stepping out of the room. Kurogane watched the boy go before looking at Fay's sweaty face as the doctor worked, then back in the direction Syaoran had gone. There wasn't anything that he could to help Fay right now. The only one who was able to do that was currently doing all that he could. Wordlessly Kurogane turned around and followed the younger boy out the door.

"You okay?" he asked as he sat down next to him on the small porch.

"No." Syaoran shook his head as he looked at his feet. They heard Fay cry out in pain inside the room.

"It's not your fault." Kurogane said quietly, knowing full well what was going on in the boy's mind. "The idiot knew what he was getting himself into."

"But if I had been paying attention to my surrou…" Syaoran started only to be cut off by a swift blow to the head.

"Didn't I just say it's not your fault?" Kurogane said.

"But I…" Syaoran started only to be talked over by the ninja once more, "kid, stop beating yourself up for stuff that's beyond your control. The mage is still alive. Besides, blaming yourself for what happened isn't going to change anything, is it?"

"no." Syaoran replied softly, as Fay cried out once again. "But I wish I had been paying more attention to what was going on around me. Fay-san could have been saved a lot of pain that way."

"He must be a really strong pureblood," the doctor said as he emerged from their room, "or a really lucky and strong one to have survived that bullet."

"Why?" Kurogane asked as he got to his feet.

"It was dipped in poison, enough to kill any living being, vampire or otherwise," the doctor informed them, "but somehow he managed to survive."

"How does this poison work?" Kurogane asked as his eyes narrowed. Someone had tried to get rid of the kid. It was by a lucky fluke that Fay had intercepted the bullet meant for Syaoran.

"It prevents the body from healing itself," the doctor replied confirming his suspicions, "which would probably the reason why he is unable to speed heal."

"Will he be okay?" Mokona asked worriedly.

"I can't say at this stage." The man replied, "If he manages to survive the next forty eight hours, he may have a chance but he's weakened greatly by the poison, so I'd say it's a fifty percent chance that he might not. Although for your sakes," he added as he looked at the three before him, "I hope I'm wrong."

Kurogane felt Syaoran's shoulders slump next to him, he was quite sure that if he turned his head, he would see that guilty look back on Syaoran's face. There was still a fair chance that Fay might not make it.

"The payment," Syaoran said softly as he walked back to the car, the doctor following him, Kurogane watched the pair walk over to the black vehicle and opened the driver's seat to pull out the bag that Subaru had handed him. Kurogane merely sighed before returning inside, pulling his seat back to Fay's bedside and settling in it.

Looking at the pale, feverish blond, splints and bandages covering his body, Kurogane was once again reminded of Tokyo. He had looked just as weak back then.

"You better make it, mage." Kurogane mumbled as he let his thoughts wander back to Acid Tokyo.

_**A/N: Yay, next chappie is up, in less than a day.**_

_**Hmmm… Fifty percent chance that Fay will not make it. What do you think? Review and let me know.**_


	3. Not you too

_**A/N: wow, this story seems to be really popular. So many favs and alerts in just three days. Thank you sooo much people. Also a big thanks to all those who took some time out to review. This chapter is dedicated to all of you. **__****_

_**Hope you like it. Enjoy. And don't forget to review.**_

Syaoran absentmindedly, wandered through the crowds of people moving about the town, his thoughts drifting back to the previous night's and that morning's events.

"_How did you know the bullet was poisonous?" Kurogane had asked as the doctor had attached the two bottles of I.V. drips to the catheter on the backside of Fay's uninjured hand._

"_It's quite easy to tell." The doctor had replied as he had adjusted the knob which regulated the amount of liquid flowing into the vampire's body, "The patient's wounds, body temperature, heartbeat and breathing, all can easily indicate the presence of _this _particular poison. You just have to know what to look for."_

"_Make sure you give this medicine to him on time." the doctor had instructed the ninja as he had handed him the bag of medicine Syaoran had bought a while back along with the I.V. drips. After that he had asked Syaoran to take him back to his clinic._

Syaoran let a sigh escape through his lips as he looked up to see the position of the sun. It was mid afternoon. Better head back now. Kurogane probably knew that he had been lying when he had left, claiming to go look for the feather. He had not even bothered to take Mokona along so how in the world would he have known about the presence of the feather anyways.

The real reason for leaving the others was a bit more selfish. Every time he had looked at Fay, lying there, so helplessly pale and weak, Syaoran had felt the guilt creep back to the front of his mind.

No matter what Kurogane said, it _was _his fault that Fay had ended up like this. It had been _his_ stupid mistake that had led to his blond companion's current state. That feeling coupled with the knowledge that his own wish had been the cause of this group's sufferings had been too much for him to take. So he did the only thing his brain could think of, he had taken flight. Had he stayed any longer, no doubt Kurogane would have picked up on the fact that something more than just Fay was troubling him. That would have led to questions, questions about facts that he had hoped he would confess to once they would have reached their true destination.

It's not like he would be able to hide that information from them anyways. However that in no way meant that he had to tell them about it now. Now, when Fay was about to… when Fay was on the brink of… when he was fighting for every single breath that he drew.

_It's all my fault._ This thought entered his mind as soon as he entered the room they had been staying at. The sound of Fay's ragged breathing and Mokona's small whimpers reached his ears. Looking over at the seat that Kurogane had been occupying when he had left, he discovered that the ninja was still there, although his head was lightly drooped over his chest.

So he had fallen asleep as well? He definitely did deserve a break, Syaoran thought as he softly closed the door behind him and shed his jacket before walking over to Fay's bedside.

The drip was more than half empty by now. The doctor would return to change it tomorrow morning, _if_ Fay survived that long… No. He shouldn't be thinking like that. Of course he would survive. He had lived through stuff before, hadn't he? There was just no way that Fay would give just up like that after coming so far.

"Staring at him won't make him heal any faster." Kurogane's gruff voice brought him out of his thoughts. Syaoran had been so absorbed in his own thoughts that he had failed to notice Kurogane wake up. _Just like yesterday_, Syaoran though bitterly as he subconsciously clenched his fist, _when that bastard snuck up on me._

"What's wrong?" Kurogane's voice made it through his angry contemplations of yesterday's events.

"Nothing." Syaoran lied as he shook his head to avoid looking the ninja in the eye. He already knew that the red-eyed man knew that he was lying, if he dared to look in his direction he would definitely see a pair of narrowed red eyes looking at him intently. Instead of doing that, however, Syaoran pulled another seat closer to Fay's bed, next to Kurogane's chair and settled himself in it.

Syaoran could tell, just by looking at the unconscious vampire before him that he was running a high fever. After all what else would that uncontrolled shaking, heavy sweating, panted breathing and groans of severe pain indicate? Was it due to the poison messing with his internal system or due to the tremendous blood loss? Or had one of his wounds gotten infected by any chance?

Gingerly, Syaoran's hand reached for the extremely pale ex-magician's face. It seemed as though if Fay's body was on fire, his flesh burning up, the heat radiating from his body had reached Syaoran's fingers long before the younger boy's hand had made contact with the older one's forehead. Syaoran hated to admit it but he was scared out of his mind. What would he do if Fay _were _to die? How would he be able to live with himself, knowing that he had caused an innocent man's death for the sake of his own selfish wish? He wouldn't be much different from that mirror seer if it happened.

Syaoran heard Kurogane stand up next to him.

"Fay wouldn't want you to blame yourself like that." Kurogane said gently as he put a hand on the brunette's head for a brief while but then he turned around and began walking out of the room, picking up the small white form of Mokona on the way. "I'll go get something to eat." He said as he stopped by the door for a while. Once he was gone, Syaoran was, yet again, left alone with his thoughts.

Back in Tokyo, although he had been concerned for the magician's well being he had not been scared to this extent. After all he hadn't personally known the man back then. All he had known was what he had seen through his clone's eye but this… It was like Sakura all over again. He felt the same helplessness that he had felt so long ago when he had seen that witnessed the seal consume her body like before his eyes. Only this time it wasn't his princess being consumed by a magical seal but his friend about to succumb to his injuries; injuries that he had received while trying to protect _him_. It wasn't supposed to be this way, damn it!

He had already caused them all so much grief without them knowing about it- Kurogane's parents, Fay's twin, the clone Sakura's death… They were not supposed to suffer for _his_ mistakes. Why were they the ones to pay for what _he_ wanted? Looking over at the pale, sweat covered vampire Syaoran felt his heart clench up in fear. What ifFay _were_ to die? What if he couldn't make it through? His death would be on _his _hands.

He knew Fay was strong willed, more than most men but that did not mean that he didn't have a limit. What if Fay decided that enough was enough and it wasn't worth all the trouble to try and stay alive? His life had changed completely when _he _had shown up in Tokyo, hadn't it? In his current state, Syaoran would definitely not blame the ex-magician if the latter chose death over life. He would finally be free of all the pain… And he would be back with his twin…

"S-Syaoran-kun…" a weak voice mumbled softly causing the boy's head to snap in the direction of the vampire. "It's not… your f-fault."

"Fay-san." Syaoran gasped in shock when he heard him speak.

"It's not your… fault…" Fay said weakly and slowly, "I knew it was pois-oned."

"Y-You knew about it?" Syaoran stared at the pale man as his shock increased tenfold. He had known about the poison from the start and still he had intercepted the bullet. But why?

"You still have some… something to do…" Fay answered his unasked question, "Don't worry about… me… I'll live."

Syaoran felt a wave of relief wash over him. Fay was not going to give up!

"So how are you feeling now?" Syaoran asked, unable to contain the happiness he felt at that time.

"Like I'm on f-ire…" Fay said with a weak chuckle, "it's kind of… sim-ilar to tok-yo…"

"The doctor gave some medicine for you." Syaoran abruptly changed the topic as he got up and hurried to bring the medicine and a glass of water. "You should take some and rest for a bit longer."

"Okay." Fay nodded his head ever so slightly.

Syaoran set the glass down next to his bed on the side table and opened the medicine bottle, extracting a couple of pills. Slowly he put his arm behind Fay's neck and back, supporting it enough to lift the vampire's head up from the pillows. Immediately a small whimper escaped from the blond at the discomfort he felt due to the change in his position.

Syaoran placed the medicine in the injured vampire's mouth and brought the glass of water to his parched lips, tipping it slowly to allow the cool liquid to pour down the other man's throat. Fay visibly relaxed as his lid drooped. Carefully setting his head back onto the pillows, Syaoran pulled out his arm from underneath him. It was quite easy to tell that Fay had lost consciousness again. With nothing left to do, Syaoran settled back in his chair, waiting for the agonizingly long hours to pass by, waiting for Fay to be out of the danger. Waiting for him to fight through it all…

-0-

"Poor Syaoran." Mokona said sadly as Kurogane lay the sleeping boy in the bed parallel to Fay's.

"The idiot is still blaming himself." Kurogane said, his eyes soft as he pulled the covers over his body before returning to his spot next to Fay's bedside. "Have tried contacting the witch again?"

"It's still not working." Mokona said as its ears drooped.

"Something must be blocking your magic again." Kurogane narrowed his eyes. "You can still sense the feather, right?"

"It's faint but the feather is here." Mokona said its face scrunched up in concentration for a while before it spoke. "Although Mokona can't use anything else."

"You mean your secret techniques?" Kurogane raised a brow.

"Someone knows about them and doesn't want Mokona to use them." The meat bun said sadly.

"And that someone has the feather." Kurogane growled.

"Mokona hopes we find it soon. Then we can call Yuuko and ask for help."

"Oh shit." Kurogane cursed as soon as he realized that Fay's breathing had turned extremely shallow, his chest almost unmoving.

"Mage! Oye, Fay! Hey, don't die." Kurogane said as he quickly checked the vampire's pulse. It was faint, struggling and flickering but still there. His skin had turned almost pale white, his lips turning blue as he remained unmoving. Quickly Kurogane started rubbing his unbroken hand and feet, alternating between the three to try and get him to regain some heat.

Slowly but surely, after what seemed like almost an hour, Fay's breathing began to return to normal, as in short rasps as the color somewhat returned to his body, even though if it was a sickly yellow. He began to shake uncontrollably again as occasional soft moans of pain would escape his parched lips.

"Kurogane!" Mokona cried out suddenly, causing the ninja to look up from Fay in the direction where the meat bun was.

"Something is wrong with Syaoran!" It cried, "He's not waking up!"

"Oh f--k!" Kurogane swore as he looked over at the boy. Small beads of sweat clung on to his face, as the boy shifted slightly in obvious discomfort. "Not you too."

_**A/N: And this is where I will leave this chapter. Aren't I evil? Hehehe…**_

_**Wonder what's wrong with Syaoran? **_

_**I'm pretty sure Syaoran was quite out of character but he had to be for this chapter to work out. I hope I didn't ruin it. Please review and let me know.**_


	4. Not real

"Oh f--k!" Kurogane swore as he looked over at the boy. Small beads of sweat clung on to his face, as the boy shifted slightly in obvious discomfort. "Not you too."

-0-

'_Syaoran-kun…' he heard a giggle as he struggled opened his heavy eyelids._

'_Syaoran- kun…' _her_ voice called his name once more, softly this time. Her soft cool hands brushed his bare arm. 'Wake up.'_

'_Sa…kura?' he asked weakly his bleary eyes opened to see a familiar face. 'Is that… you?'_

'_Who else can it be Syaoran-kun?' her jade eyes sparkled as she smiled._

'_Wh- where am I?' he asked as he sat up suddenly, looking around him with wide eyes._

'_In the palace gardens of course.' Sakura replied cheerfully, 'you fell asleep a while ago.'_

'_Gardens?' Syaoran repeated as he took in the sight surrounding him. Exotic lush green trees surrounded him, shading him from the sun while soft velvety grass prickled his bare feet lightly. He looked down to find himself wearing his black muscle shirt and baggy pants that he always wore; his cape and boots lay discarded a short distance away from him as were his goggles. He looked behind him to see the Clow castle standing proud and tall, its structure unaffected by the harsh desert storms and winds._

_He was back in Clow._

-0-

Kurogane walked over to Syaoran and put a hand to his forehead. Sure enough the boy was burning up with fever.

"What the hell?" Kurogane almost yelled in exasperation, "Now there are two of them."

"What will we do?"Mokona asked in a worried tone.

"Get the doctor again, I guess." Kurogane sighed as he got up.

"Sa…kura…" Syaoran's weak mumble stopped him from leaving.

Kurogane had just remembered seeing something. When he had put Syaoran to bed earlier he had brushed it aside as something trivial but now… quickly he pulled away the covers and raised the boy's arm noticing the small wound there. At first glance it did not seem like much, it would have even passed off as a minor scratch but now that he inspected it more closely, Kurogane noticed that it was actually congealed up blood and not just a bit of raw skin.

Wordlessly Kurogane placed the arm by the boy's side before walking over to the lone cupboard in the room, where they had placed the medical supplies for Fay. Quickly bringing out the bottle of antiseptic and a wad of cotton Kurogane moved back to the boy's side.

"Manju keep an eye on the mage." Kurogane instructed as he opened the bottle and upturned it while holding the cotton ball to its mouth. After that he proceeded to use the cotton to clean the blood to reveal a small puncture wound, thin enough to have been caused by a needle of some sort. Wait a second, was that really what he thought he saw? Kurogane gently lifted Syaoran's arm up to the light to observe more closely. Sure enough there it was, he could see definitely see the thin and silver piece of metal stuck inside the punctured skin.

This wound had not been there when he had left to go buy dinner for the two of them. Did it mean someone had hurt the boy while he had been gone? But why hadn't Syaoran tried to defend himself? This puzzled him greatly. Well he would ponder on that later on, right now he needed to get that needle out of the boy's arm. It seemed to have been broken in there, on purpose perhaps?

Kurogane reached inside his pocket and produced a small folding pocket knife. Something that he had seen in town the previous day while wandering around… err I mean asking around. Kurogane used a fresh swab of cotton and antiseptic to sterilize the knife before using it to make a small cut on the boy's skin, the only response that he got for this action was a small flinch from the boy.

Kurogane observed the boy as he removed the needle from his arm; his body temperature was far too high and for some reason his breathing had acquired a wheezing quality to it, his heart was racing and his skin was flushed. Kurogane would have bet his armor on the possibility that Syaoran had been poisoned too. Perhaps in a smaller doze if he was still alive? But it was _that_ poison all the same.

Once he had pulled out the needle and cleaned the wound once more, Kurogane wrapped a clean bandage around his arm before turning his attention back to the needle now lying in an empty dish. Looking closely, Kurogane discovered that it was a really thin one, the type used in syringes.

Had someone injected Syaoran with the poison?

"Manju stay here and keep an eye on these two," Kurogane said as he jumped to his feet and hurried out the door, "I'll be back as soon as I can."

-0-

_He looked around in a daze trying to digest this information. He was back in Clow… but how?_

'_Syaoran-kun, are you okay?' her voice brought his attention back to the present. He turned to see her looking at him with a worried look on her face, 'if you're still not well, we can go back inside.' She offered._

'_N-no… I'm fine.' He replied immediately noticing the lack of something._

'_Hey Sakura,' the girl tilted her head to the side curiously, 'where are the others?'_

'_Umm… if you mean Touya-nii san and Yukito-san,' she replied, 'then they left for a visit to the neighboring kingdom. You saw them leave just this morning.'_

'_No, I meant where are Mokona, Fay-san and Kurogane-san?' Syaoran asked her._

_Sakura looked at him worriedly as she put her hand to his forehead, 'you don't have the fever anymore.' She said thoughtfully._

'_I'm fine Sakura.' Syaoran replied as he looked around to see if he could spot the three himself. 'Where are they?'_

'_Syaoran-kun, what are you talking about?' Sakura asked worriedly, 'you know they are not real.'_

'_Not…real???' Syaoran repeated slowly. _What_?!? _That was impossible.

'_Your mind made them up during your sickness.' Sakura told him gently, 'did you dream about them again?'_

'_Hallucinated?' this was really confusing him now. What the hell was going on?_

'_Um… I think we should head back to your room now Syaoran-kun,' Sakura said helping him to his feet before picking up his belongings and handing him his boots, 'I shouldn't have asked you to come outside earlier.' She said guiltily, 'you're still sick after all.'_

'_No I'm fine Sakura.' Syaoran said as he put on his shoes, 'just tell me what's going on.'_

'_You don't remember?' Sakura asked as the two started walking back towards the castle._

_Syaoran racked his brains but all he could remember was… nothing. He couldn't remember anything at all. Except that he knew that Kurogane-san, Mokona and Fay-san were his traveling companions, helping him find Sakura's scattered memories._

'_What's going on here Sakura?' he asked, his mind whirring in confusion, why couldn't she remember them? She had been travelling along hadn't she? _

'_You got bitten by something in the ruins two months ago while you were supervising a dig,' Sakura told him gently, smiling at the passerby's who greeted the two, 'the next day you collapsed while you were reporting to Touya-nee san and wouldn't wake up. You had such a high fever and no matter what medicine we gave you, it wouldn't lessen even a fraction. You were unconscious most of the time and whenever you woke up you kept talking about really strange things…'_

'_Your condition just kept getting worse,' tears welled up in her eyes as she said that, 'you were in a coma for one and a half month. I was so worried; Yukito-san said that you were going to die.'_

'_Then all of a sudden last week,' Sakura said her voice regaining its cheerful tone, 'you woke up.'_

'_What did I talk about?' Syaoran asked softly._

'_Well,' Sakura rubbed her arm uneasily, 'you used to say stuff about feathers and memories and you would mention those three names as your friends, who were helping you on your journey to collect my memories.' She giggled lightly._

'_What?' Syaoran asked as he stopped walking. Something was wrong here._

'_It's funny. You dreamt about me forgetting you.' She replied, 'but I can never forget you, Syaoran-kun.'_

'_Syaoran-kun?' she turned around to look behind her when she realized that the boy was not following her anymore. 'Syaoran-kun!' she cried out as she ran towards him, that was th last thing he saw before his world faded to black._

-0-

"Syaoran!" Mokona wailed as it heard the boy's ragged breathing come to a sudden halt. "Syaoran!!" Mokona cried as it hopped over to the boy and tried to shake him.

"Syaoran! Don't die! Syaoran!!" it wailed as it shook the boy. "Kurogane, where are you?"

All of a sudden Syaoran coughed before he started to pant once more, drawing in really short raspy breaths through his mouth.

"Syaoran… Kurogane, hurry up…" Mokona cried silently, praying that the ninja returned soon. The poor thing had no idea what to do with the two of them. It had been almost half an hour now since Kurogane had left. How much longer would it take for him to get the doctor?

On the other bed, Fay gave out a small whimper as well as he curled up into a ball. He must be feeling really cold again.

Mokona heard the sounds of an engine outside the motel. So he was back. Mokona hurriedly bounced to the door and undid the lock just a split second before Kurogane wrenched the door open, followed closely by a pale doctor, just what exactly had he said to make the poor man accompany him at this time of the night?

"Alright, get to work." Kurogane growled making the doctor jump in fright. Making himself appear as small as possible, the doctor quickly made his way to the unconscious boy's bed.

The doctor took his temperature, flashed the light in his eyes, checked his pulse rate, breathing level etc before turning around to face the two.

"Are the still here?" he asked Kurogane. The ninja walked over to the cupboard and pulled out the bags of red and translucent liquids.

"Just the white one," the doctor told him before returning his attention to Syaoran, inserting canola in the artery at the back of his hand. He used the nearby lamp as the stand for the bottle before he adjusted the knobs on it and connected the drip to Syaoran's hand.

"He was poisoned too, right?" Kurogane asked gruffly.

"Yes. It appears so," the doctor replied, "lucky for him though, you found out about it just before it did some major damage."

"And what about the mage?" Kurogane asked.

"Mage?" the doctor repeated in puzzlement.

"I meant him." Kurogane nodded his head in the direction of the curled up vampire.

"Hmmm…" the doctor moved closer to inspect the man, checking his single pupil. The red haired man then proceeded to check the regulating knob on the IV tube, "That drip should have been more than enough."

"What's wrong?" Mokona asked.

"The poison is still active in his blood." replied a befuddled doctor. "It should have been neutralized by now."

"Why?" Kurogane asked quietly as Syaoran's heavy breathing slowed ever so slightly. "It seems to be working on the kid so it can't be the medicine."

"It should be working on him as well." the doctor said sounding frustrated, "it's been tested on vampires before and it works."

"What do you suggest we do now?"

"Keep them warm and comfortable till morning." The doctor replied with a sigh as he bent to pick up his black bag.

"So that's it?" Kurogane growled, "You're not going to do anything else? What about the poison?"

"Overdosing the patient would not be a smart idea Mr. Kurogane." The doctor replied patiently. "The antidote is still in his veins, an excessive amount of this substance can be very lethal too." The man turned around and walked towards the door, "once the boy wakes up, give him the same pills as your other friend. Seeing as you won't be able to buy any for him at this time of the night, you'll just have to get some more tomorrow. I'll be back in the morning to check on their progress."

-0-

_When he came to, Syaoran felt like his entire body was put on fire. Everything was burning up- even the hand that was holding onto his own, the owner sleeping uncomfortably in a chair next to his bed._

'_Sakura?' Syaoran asked groggily as he struggled to sit in a bed which was not his own. His movements stirred the girl sitting next to him as well._

'_Oh. You woke up.' She smiled brightly before looking sheepish, 'I'm not going to ask you to leave with me again till you're fully healed.'_

'_I know it's not real.' Syaoran said softly as he gazed at the brown haired girl, 'but I'm glad I got a chance to see you again.'_

-0-

Hours ticked by slowly, each second seeming to stretch out for an infinitely long amount of time as Kurogane sat next to his two traveling companions. Time dragged on, slowly but surely, it was almost four a.m. when Syaoran woke up. Kurogane having stayed awake the entire night as their guard was by his side when two clouded brown amber eyes looked up at him.

"How are you feeling kid?" Kurogane asked as he checked the boy's temperature to assume the stage of fever. The boy mumbled something incoherent in reply although to Kurogane it sounded suspiciously like _Sakura._

"I guess I better give you your medicine," Kurogane said as he helped the boy sit up. His entire body continued to burn with high fever.

Even as Kurogane helped him take the medicine, senseless words and phrases continued to make their way past his lips in short mumbled sentences. The only words that he could make out were _not real _and_ glad._

As soon as he removed the glass from Syaoran's lips, the boy literally crashed back onto the bed, he had lost consciousness again.

-0-

'_Syoa-ran-kun?' Sakura looked at him in confusion, the smile vanishing from her face._

'_I made a wish once upon a time,' Syaoran said as he looked at her sadly, 'a wish to save the princess that I loved because it was my fault that she was going to die.' Sakura looked confused, torn between the desire to call someone one for help and the desire to listen to what he has to say._

'_But my wish had consequences,' Syaoran said almost to himself, 'I ruined numerous lives just because I had hesitated back then.'_

'_Syaoran…' Sakura started but the boy talked her over, 'the blame for all that is my own; I had hesitated to take her hand in the ruins that day. Because of that,' Syaoran sighed, 'she was branded with the seal of death. For seven years I searched for a way to break it but nothing came out of it. To keep her safe from death, I doomed so many others to the same fate.'_

'_I paid my price for it but…' Syaoran looked outside the window to see the twin towers standing against the setting sun in the distance, 'I dragged them along with me. Even so…' his head turned in her direction, amber locking its gaze with jade, 'Fay-san was right... I still have some business to take care of.' The world around him began to dissolve ever so slightly._

'_I'm _not_ going to give up.' Syaoran said as a fire started burning in his eyes, 'I will save you Sakura. I won't let you die…' he said as the girl before him and everything else disappeared in a haze of grey smoke, leaving behind nothing but an empty blackness._

-0-

_**A/N: So, here's the next chapter, I decided to not end it on four chapters after all. :) hope you enjoyed it. The part in italics as you would have guessed by now was actually what Syaoran was dreaming about in his fevered state.**_

_**Once again I would like to thank everyone who has added this story to their alerts and favs. **_

_**P.S. leave a few reviews as well.**_

_**Hmmm. I think I should clarify that the reason why Syaoran and Fay show different reactions to being poisoned by the same poison is that Fay is a vampire while Syaoran is a human.**_


	5. Does it even matter?

Nothing eventful happened after Kurogane had given Syaoran the medicine. The boy's body temperature had returned to normal by now, the pained expression on his face had transited to a peaceful one as the teenager had fallen into a relatively less troubled slumber. His breathing was no longer raspy or shallow but deep and slow. This was good news. It meant that his student was on the road to recovery.

Unfortunately Kurogane could not say the same for the vampire. True, his body was no longer burning but it was also true that his skin was cold and mottled, his breathing rapid and shallow, his pulse weak and thready. He would occasionally let out a whimper or two as the expression on his face would turn to one of pain.

The ninja just could not understand it. Why the hell was the medicine not working on the ex-mage? Syaoran was already recovering. If his estimation was not incorrect then the boy would be able to move about till that evening but Fay… why the hell was it still there? The poison that is. Why hadn't it been neutralized by now? Countless such unanswered questions plagued the red-eyed man as he shifted into a more comfortable position on the chair…

-0-

Kurogane wasn't sure when he had fallen asleep but the light knocking on the door woke him up from his slumber. Walking towards the door, Kurogane glanced at the clock to check the time, 11:00 a.m.

So he had been sleeping for almost three hours.

"Good morning Mr. Kurogane." The doctor greeted as the ninja stepped aside to let the red haired man in. "I've alerted the hospital about the condition of our blond friend and we'll be moving him there today if I see no improvement in him." The doctor informed as he set about to examine Syaoran first.

"Hmmm…" the doctor mumbled thoughtfully as performed the rituals of the previous day, "he seems to have improved a lot overnight." The practitioner extracted a syringe and small bottle of serum from his bag and after putting away the small flash light he had been using.

"He doesn't require another bottle of the antidote," the man informed Kurogane when he noticed that the other man was looking at him with narrowed eyes. "This dose should be enough. He will probably wake up in a few hours, though I recommend that he takes the medicine for at least two more days."

The man then proceeded to examine the unconscious vampire. A frown formed on his face as he took the temperature and checked his pulse rate. The man extracted a small black box from his pocket and prodded it with is finger for a second before putting it to his ear and speaking into it.

"Get an ambulance over to Rockyshells Motel," the man said urgently, "I have an injured vampire here in the early stages of pre-shock… _**(A/N: if there is such a thing ;) hehehe)**_ Yes you heard me correctly… yes, I said vampire… no… yes, I'm sure… look. Stop asking stupid questions and send it over already. Yes, note it down."

"Did he say shock?" Mokona asked in a teary voice.

"He did." Kurogane nodded as he tried to keep the alarm out of his tone, "why?"

"The ambulance will be here shortly." The man said as he walked over to Kurogane but a sudden cry of pain made them both rush towards Fay. The vampire's breathing hitched for a few seconds before starting once more in short gasps as his body started to shake.

"What's wrong with him?" Kurogane almost yelled at the doctor. This was the first time the ninja had lost his cool. He could easily see that his friend's condition was becoming unstable.

-0-

_It was all so cold. Everything around him was frozen solid. The white frozen crystal like fog of frozen water droplets had enveloped his body. He could feel its chill settling into the very core of his body. In his entire life, Fay had known only one other place which was as cold as this... The pit of the sinners. (__**A/N: that's what it was called I think. Too lazy to go and confirm it. Sorry. If anyone remembers or knows, feel free to let me know.) **_

_Weakly Fay lifted his head off of his chest and looked around with a single bleary eye. As far as his eye could see, a blanket of white had enveloped everything. He tried to see past the haze of white but nothing could be seen. Where the hell was he? And why was he chained up to a stone wall? And why was there snow everywhere?_

_After what seemed like ages but were in fact just a few minutes, the haze began to clear up. And once that happened, Fay wished with all his heart that it had remained. At least then he would have remained blissfully ignorant of his surroundings. But not all wishes came true. This was just one of those that never would._

"_Hello Fay." A voice breathed in his ear. The vampire's eye widened in shock. That voice…_

"_Surprised to see me brother?" the hollow eyed, mummified corpse of his long dead brother grinned in his face._

"_No." Fay breathed as he shook his head, "y-you're not Fay. Fay's d…"_

"_Dead?" the grinning corpse cut in, "and whose fault is that?"_

"_You're not my brother." Fay's shaky voice sounded weak, even to his own ears._

"_Does that even matter?" the corpse said carelessly as it walked out of his line of vision to the blind side of his face. He came back in view seconds later, dragging along a sword. The same sword his uncle had used all those years ago to commit suicide. It was still sticky with his blood._

"_All that matters Yuui..." the corpse grin widened as its hoarse childish voice took on a menacing tone, "is that you stay here until all this is over." It raised the sword slowly pointing it towards the vampire's stomach._

"_I wonder if you will bleed back there if I killed you here?" the corpse grinned manically as it kept the sword hovering in that position for a while._

"_Uuuh!" Fay's breathing hitched and his eye widened as soon as the frozen metal slid through his flesh._

"_Oh well." The corpse shrugged with a laugh as it slipped the sword out of the vampire's stomach, "I'll find out soon enough, won't I?"_

"_Ahhh!" Fay cried out in pain as the sword was, once again, thrust into his body. Although this time it was in his wounded shoulder._

-0-

"He's going into shock." The doctor replied as he gripped the vampire's right shoulder and arm, (the unbroken one), "Help me hold him down; he'll start to thrash about very soon." Kurogane did as he was instructed and not a second too soon, just as his hands pressed against the vampire's lower legs, Fay started trying to toss and turn in a fretful manner but was unable to do so thanks to the men holding him down.

For the second time in less than two minutes, Kurogane heard Fay's breathing snag and prepared himself for the worst. Just then without another warning all hell broke loose.

Fay's scream pierced through the silence like a knife as a single gold eye shot open before shutting just as quickly. His entire body trembled under the strong hands trying to keep him still. Kurogane had to admit, even in this weakened state Fay was proving to be really hard to keep in place.

"Keep a hold of him!" the practitioner ordered as he pushed down harder to keep Fay pinned to the bed.

This was something that was easier said than done, since his strength was at least twice as that of Kurogane. The red-eyed man grimaced inwardly; he may have to resort to being rough with the injured man in trying to render him immobile.

After several minutes that seemed like an eternity, Fay's screams quieted down to violent shivers and incoherent mutterings. It was quite a while before his quivering body gradually fell limp with just an occasional involuntary tremor shaking it up to show that he was still alive. Kurogane could easily notice how Fay's life energy was quickly dying away. The shock had affected his whole body as he had convulsed rampantly. The man was now slipping into death's unending coma.

"Fay! Don't you _dare_ die on us!" Kurogane growled in a dangerous manner as he gently let go of the blond.

-0-

"_Ahhh!" Fay cried out in pain as the sword was repeatedly plunged into different parts of his body. The poor vampire tried to break free but something was restraining him from moving about as he was attacked by his brother's corpse's look alike. Still the vampire did not give up as he kept on trying to break free. Finally it was just too much. The pain, the blood loss, everything. It was proving too much for him as his body grew weaker and weaker. He couldn't keep it up... Couldn't struggle anymore…_

_Oh, how he wanted it all to just come to an end. He did not care if he lived or died. He just wanted it to end._

_His body would occasionally spasm in response to the blade cutting through him but energy was leaving him fast. His breathing was slowing down as he hung limply from his binds. It was nearing now. Fay could feel it. The end… His freedom… It was all coming close. Once it did, he would gladly welcome that blissful ignorance. That amazing feeling of not knowing anything. He wanted to feel that more than anything he had ever wished for._

"Fay! Don't you _dare_ die on us!" _these were the last words that the vampire heard as his world blacked out._

-0-

_Where was he? What was going on? _These were the first thoughts that came to his mind as Syaoran sat up in his bed and looked around with bleary eyes. It was dark and the room was empty. No one seemed to be around. Or so he thought as soon as he heard a high pitched cry of "Syaoran!"

"Mokona? What's wrong?" Syaoran asked as the white creature hopped over to his bed with tear-filled eyes, "where are Fay-san and Kurogane-san?" Syaoran looked around as his eyes adjusted to the darkness slightly. Syaoran lowered his leg to the floor and tried to stand up. Strangely enough, he couldn't keep his feet steady and fell back on the bed as he lost his balance.

"Syaoran! Are you okay?" Mokona cried as it jumped to his shoulder.

"I'm fine, just a little dizzy, that's all." Syaoran tried standing one more time, at a slower pace. "I don't know why though." he asked as he clutched the headstand for support. His head was still swimming, everything coming in and out of focus.

"Hey Mokona, are Fay-san and Kurogane-san still out looking for the feather?" Syaoran took a few unsteady steps towards the small sofa, where a bottle of water was placed on a table with a glass right next to it.

"Syaoran, you…" Mokona started in a confused manner, "don't you remember?"

"Remember what?" the boy asked as he poured himself some water.

"Fay fell off of a cliff." Mokona said sadly.

"He did?" Syaoran's eyes widened in shock. "When? How? Is he alright? Where is he now?"

"He fell two nights ago," Mokona told the boy as tears welled up in its eyes. "He was shot and the poison made him sick. But why doesn't Syaoran remember? Syaoran was there too. Syaoran was poisoned too, is that why Syaoran doesn't remember?"

"I-I don't know." The boy replied as he racked his brains, trying to remember what had happened before he had fallen asleep, but all he could remember was heading out to the castle to search for the feather. After that there was nothing.

"Where are they now?" Syaoran asked as he pulled on his boots.

"Town hospital." Mokona replied as it watched the boy head towards the door.

"Kurogane asked you to take your medicine and rest after that." Mokona called after him as it picked up the tablets and capsule from the table and hopped over to the boy.

Syaoran took them with a small thank you but once again started for the door with the car keys in his hand.

"He asked you to rest."Mokona protested, "Syaoran is still sick."

"I'm much better now Mokona." The boy replied kindly as he picked up the creature and locked the door to the room behind him, "I can rest later; right now I have to see Fay-san."

-0-

"I thought I asked you to rest." Kurogane growled as soon as he saw the brown haired boy walk into the waiting room. While the doctor had rushed Fay to the hospital after his fit, Kurogane had left Syaoran in Mokona's care because the boy was due to wake up in the evening.

"I'm sorry Kurogane-san." The boy lowered his head, "I just came to see Fay-san."

"He's in a coma, kid." Kurogane said bluntly as he looked out the window.

-0-

_**A/N: Well there you have it. The next chapter in "What the hell?"**_

_**Hope you liked it and will be able to forgive me torturing Fay like that. No wait! Put those pitchforks down. Hey! Point that thing somewhere else! H-hey, wait a second guys… g-guys?**_

_**AAAAAHHHHH!!!! They're out to get me!!!**_

_**Fay: Serves you right for putting me through so much pain.**_

_**Syaoran: Ummm… Aren't you supposed to be trapped in some sort of dream like reality?**_

_**Fay: Why yes, yes I am…**_

_**Kurogane: Then "what the hell" are you doing here?**_

_**Fay: (huffs) I can come and go in the author notes even if I **_**am**_** trapped in the story.**_

_**Me: Guys. Little help here? (Currently tied up with chains and dangling off the balcony of the old castle in the story)**_

_**Kurogane: I'm not helping her. I don't even like her. (Walks away)**_

_**Fay: I'm trapped in a dream like state of comatose. (Follows the ninja)**_

_**Syaoran: (looks around frantically) Ummm… I kinda have to go on a date with Sakura.**_

_**Me: Liar! Sakura is not even in the story.**_

_**Syaoran: I think I saw Ryouh **_(spellings?)_**. Hey! Wait up guys! (runs away)**_

_**Me: … GET ME OFF OF HERE YOU CRAZY GOOD FOR NOTHING CHARACTERS!!!**_

_**Everyone: (raise their pitchforks)**_

_**Me: I-I meant really nice and caring people… aww come on people… n-no wait! Not that! Noooo….**_

_**Mokona: (hops in after a while) the author got carried away by an angry mob. If you wish to witness her being punished, please head over to the review room. Join in with everyone else in telling her off for committing the heinous crimes of torturing our favorite characters.**_

_**Me: (poked her head out of the room) or you could encourage her and save her from the bad people who are currently trying to kill her. (Sees the look she is getting) EEP!! (Runs back inside) uh-oh! Nooo….**_

_**PS. You will all be pleased to know that the author has survived her punishment and will continue writing the next chapter as well as the other three currently active stories. :) **_

_**Ciao!**_


	6. He'll get through

"_He's in a coma, kid." Kurogane said bluntly as he looked out the window._

"C-coma?!?" Syaoran repeated in disbelief.

"Yeah," Kurogane grunted. "He won't know you're even there."

"Can I go see him?" the boy asked quietly.

"His condition is unstable," was the mumbled reply. "They're not letting anyone in."

The brown haired original of his student remained rooted to his spot at the door.

"Damn it mage!" Kurogane swore angrily all of a sudden. A dent of considerable size was left in the steel table as his fist made contact with the top.

"Kurogane…" Mokona cried as it hopped over to the ninja.

"You better pull through this," he growled dangerously to no one in particular. "Or I swear I _am _going to kill you."

Syaoran just lowered his head in shame as guilt washed over him. _He_ was the cause of it all and no matter what he did, the fact would remain unchanged. Despite the fact that Syaoran had joined their small group just a couple of dimensions back, the original of the archeologist had seen the group of dimension travelers become a family of sorts. _He_ had broken apart this little family and he had hurt each and every one of them.

In Tokyo, the clone- Kurogane's student- had gone berserk when _he _had appeared. The strong willed, caring and selfless boy had deserted them all to search for the feathers because _he _had taken his heart back…

In Infinity, the princess had sacrificed herself to protect _him_ from being stabbed by Fay. In Nihon, her soul had died while trying to keep _him _alive.

In Rockyshells (_**A/N: stupid name, I know)**_, Fay had taken the poison and the fall for _him._ Heck, he had gone into a coma for _him!_

And Kurogane… Although the man had never verbally acknowledged this fact, he had come to care for each and every single member of that group… He had found a student in his clone, a younger sister in the princess and a good friend in Fay. They had all become important to him and _he… he _had taken it all away. _He _had appeared and forced the ninja to lose everyone. Syaoran, Sakura and now Fay. One by one, they were all leaving him alone and it was all, _his _fault. (_**A/N: The parts in italics refer to R. Syaoran)**_

Almost three hours after his arrival at the hospital the doctor emerged at the door causing the boy to come out of his daze as his head snapped towards the door. Kurogane had already jumped to his feet and appeared next to the doctor.

"His condition is now stable," the doctor announced. A relieved sigh escaped from Syaoran's lips in response.

"Can we go see him?" Mokona asked as it appeared from Kurogane's jacket causing the doctor to yelp in surprise.

"Th-that thing can talk?" the doctor's jaw fell open.

For once Mokona did not cry out "Mokona is not a thing. Mokona is Mokona." in its high pitched voice rather the white fuzz ball just nodded silently.

"Yeah it can talk. You got a problem with that?" Kurogane's low growl was all that was needed for the doctor's to get over his shock.

"N-No." the man replied, intimidated by the irate ninja.

"Good, so then you can answer what it asked." Kurogane stated simply.

"Er.. Erm…" the doctor fidgeted under his red-eyed gaze. "Well he is s-still in the ICU so you can't go inside… B-but you can visit him for a minute or so." He squeaked as Kurogane's gaze turned to a glare.

"Newbie." Kurogane mumbled under his breath as he and Syaoran followed the small man through several double doors to reach a long corridor. There were wooden doors on each side with just a small round glass pane at head level to look inside. Kurogane noticed that all of the doors were closed as they walked to the very end of the corridor. The doctor came to a stop next to the second last door and turned to the door on their right.

"He's in there, only one person at a time," He said in a low voice as he opened the door. "Please don't touch anything and keep your voice down." With that the man left.

"You go first." Kurogane nodded at Syaoran.

"You came here to see him, didn't you?" Kurogane cut in when the boy tried to protest. Wordlessly, Syaoran lowered his head and stepped inside the room allowing the door to silently close behind him.

Beep… Beep… Beep…

The monitor next to Fay's bed beeped softly as the signal of his heartbeat flashed across the screen along with several other lines. Syaoran had no idea what they were indicators of but he knew this much, they were signs that the ex-magician was still alive. The sight before him scared Syaoran as guilt resurfaced in his heart.

The comatose man lying motionless on the bed with an oxygen mask covering his nose and mouth, several bottles of IV drips continuously injecting various fluids and medicines into his body, numerous white round patches barely visible against the deathly pale skin… Syaoran could not believe that this broken, motionless, barely alive body before him was that of an extremely hyperactive and happy go lucky magician com vampire.

"I am so sorry Fay-san." Syaoran mumbled quietly as his fists clenched off their own accord. The only he got from the other man was the slight fogging of the plastic mask as he exhaled. Seeing Fay like this, weak and unresponsive was just too much for Syaoran to bear. The seventeen year old spun around and marched right out of the room, completely avoiding the ninja's gaze as he hurried past him and down the corridor.

Mokona hopped off of his shoulder when Kurogane opened the door.

"Mokona will see Fay after Kurogane." The meat bun said in a quiet voice when the ninja raised his brow.

Kurogane quietly made his way across the small room, stopping at a distance of two feet from Fay's bed. He could clearly see the dark circle underneath Fay's eyes.

"You can be so annoying at times mage." Kurogane said softly as his eyes remained fixed on that impassive face, "you just had to go and get yourself in this condition, didn't you? Now the idiot kid is blaming himself for all this…" he sighed. "Get better already, Sakura-hime is waiting."

-0-

_A weak groan escaped Fay's lips as the vampire uselessly tried to lift his head. His unsteady eyes could see the blood that had pooled about a foot below his dangling feet and frozen on the extremely cold valley floor. His arms and legs had lost all feeling as he had remained suspended from the wall by his hands in a pathetic mess in his unconscious state._

_The sword had sliced through his muscles and most probably damaged quite a few organs but thankfully he could not feel anything. This freezing weather had numbed his entire body. The vampire knew that he was still alive and that this was not hell, unless of course, hell became frozen tundra for people like him when they died. Now that would be a different case entirely but for some reason Fay knew that this place, as bad as it was, was not hell but the pit of sinners… he was back in the place where he had been punished by his people just for being born._

_He was back to the place where he had spent more than a half of his life, calling out to his brother. A brother who had now returned from the dead to punish him for causing his death. This is what he would have thought before the events of Celes._

_Now, however, the vampire knew that it was just some monstrosity that had chosen to wear his brother's face while tormenting him. His energy had been sapped off of him leaving Fay unable to move, the biggest movement that the blond could make was nothing more than a twitch._

_Fay vaguely wondered how long would it be before his torturer returned to torment him. The thing had vanished two hours ago when he had come to, leaving him all alone in a wisp of grey smoke. Yes. All alone. There was no one else in this frozen wasteland apart from him and that thing that wore his brother's face. There was no one there when he had screamed in pain and there was no one there when he had been repeatedly stabbed and drove through by a sword._

_It was then that he heard it, a faint, distant murmuring in the wind. " … sorry… Fay-san…"_

_Fay would have laughed out loud like a maniac if he could have… the wind was apologizing to him… or was he so desperate to find someone apart from himself and his tormentor in this valley of death that he had started imagining the wind talking?_

_If that were the case then he ought to congratulate himself… way to lose his sanity now._

_There it was again, "…better already… waiting…"_

_A weak chuckle generated in his throat but died before it could even escape his lips._

"_Where are you guys?" Fay whispered weakly as the grey smoke rematerialized before him._

"_Hello Yuui." The corpse gave a twisted grin as it lifted his face up, forcing him to look into two lifeless blue orbs._

_Only Fay was the one who heard the wind whisper his name ever so softly, "…Fay…"_

-0-

Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep…

Fay's breathing hitched as soon as Kurogane had closed the door to the ICU. The ninja spun around at the sound of the wailing monitor.

"Manju, stay here," Kurogane ordered as he rushed down the corridor.

"Sir you are not allowed to r…" the nurse started as soon as she saw the ninja emerged from the ICU

"Something is wrong with the man in room 616." Kurogane cut her in. the nurse immediately pushed a button on the panel in the wall next to her. Within seconds, doctors and nurses were speeding down the corridor towards Fay's room.

Mokona hopped through the swinging doors and jumped up to Kurogane's shoulder, silently crying into his shirt.

"He'll get through." Kurogane said in a firm tone as he patted Mokona on its round head.

-0-

It was almost a week later when Fay's condition finally grew stable enough for the doctors to move him into a ward. Although the comatose vampire was still kept under a strict observation, with nurses checking on him every couple of hours but now the blonde's companions were allowed to stay with him. Thankfully the blond no longer required the oxygen mask but he was still given nutrition intravenously.

Syaoran and Kurogane would switch their turns on keeping watch and searching for the feather. Whoever went out to look for the feather would take Mokona along but there had been no more clues to lead to the feather after Fay's accident at the castle.

Still the three remaining members of the group searched relentlessly.

"Kurogane… san," Syaoran said softly as he emerged from the room, gaining the attention of the ninja who was about to head out with Mokona to search for the feather.

"What is it kid?" the ninja inquired as he pulled on his jacket.

"Mokona go inside and look after y… Fay for a while please." Syaoran asked the white meat bun.

"Okay." Mokona said uncertainly as it hooped off the ninja's head and went inside.

Kurogane gave the boy a questioning look as he folded his arms across his chest.

"Yesterday I found a book in town." The boy said as he avoided the red-eyed man's gaze.

"So?"

"It was about the Sakura's feather and it's relation to the ghost that haunts that castle." The teen told him.

"What did it say?"

"The ghost is of a vampire hunter who was killed by the poison bullet during the war," Syaoran said softly. "Unlike normal ghosts, he can roam about the whole land that he ruled."

"So it was some sort of landlord?" Kurogane asked.

"He was a duke." Syaoran corrected quickly.

"Does it have the feather?"

"The book wasn't clear about it but I think that he does." The boy replied.

"Do you want to go look for it today as well?" Kurogane's tone was soft, almost understanding.

"Wha..? n-no." Syaoran shook his head quickly. "I just thought you should know about it."

Kurogane observed the boy through narrowed eyes as the teen avoided meeting his gaze choosing to stare at the ground instead.

"Alright, I'll see what I can find." Kurogane nodded as he turned around and started to leave. "Manju, let's go."

"Mokona will come back later," the white fuzz ball said to the unconscious vampire as it hopped out of the room. Syaoran watched the two disappear round the corner of the corridor before heading back inside the room, silently shutting the door behind him.

-0-

_White. It was the first thing that he saw as soon as he opened his eyes. There was a tall tower and an equally tall wall on his sides however there was nothing but snow apart from these two features. Or so he thought. As his eyes became more adjusted to the white, he began making out pale grey heaps and piles that dotted the snowy field here and there._

"_Anybody here?" he called out. A cold shiver ran down his spine as the wind beat about his body. Looking down at his clothes he realized that his jacket was the only thing which was even remotely related to warm clothing but even that was not enough to keep him safe from the freezing cold valley that he was in at present._

_Speaking of which, how had he ended up here in the first place?_

-0-

"Did you notice it too?" Mokona asked quietly as the two stepped into the empty elevator.

"I did." Kurogane replied with a nod.

"What are we going to do?"

"If it really is the way the book says," the ninja replied, "then we have to destroy whatever it is that is keeping the thing here."

"The woman at the bookstore was really helpful." Mokona said as its stomach growled loudly.

Kurogane got out on the next floor, "you're hungry manju." He said quietly when Mokona opened its mouth to ask why he had gotten off five stories above the ground floor.

"We should take something for Syaoran before we leave, he didn't have any breakfast either." Mokona suggested as it inhaled four sandwiches.

Kurogane wordlessly headed over to the counter and got two more sandwiches for the brown haired boy.

"Guess we better give these to him before we leave." The ninja said as they walked over to the elevators.

A really nervous nurse met the two on their way to Fay's room.

"Was the patient in room 704 scheduled for any tests today?" the two heard her ask the nurse at the reception.

"Room 704?" Mokona repeated to the ninja in confusion. "But Fay didn't have any test for today."

"No, why? Did something happen?" the other nurse asked.

"He is not in his room." The first nurse answered, "The attendant is gone too."

Kurogane spared a glance in Mokona's direction before bounding for the room in question.

"Oh shit!" the red-eyed ninja swore as he opened the door to the room to find an empty bed…

_**A/N: a cliffy… hehehe… wonder who else ended up in the pit of sinners? And what happened to Syaoran and Fay? Will Kurogane and Mokona be able to find the two? And what about the feather and the ghost?**_

_**All that and more will be answered in the next chapter. Stay tuned till then. :)**_

_**PS. The author would like to thank everyone who has added this story to their favorites or alerts list. She would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers since she normally thanks the reviewers personally whenever she can but since that can't be done with anonymous so… Thanks a lot guy :)**_

_**And big thank you to all those who have so far read this story, because of you guys the number of his on this story have reached over 600 in almost thirteen days. (wow!)**_


	7. A spell

_As far as the eye could see, not even a single living soul was in sight. He had just picked up a random direction (_**A/N: It was either forward or backward actually ;)**_) and started walking that way. He trudged in the frozen wasteland for what felt like hours, calling out to nothing at all._

_Finally his eyes picked up something which contrasted greatly with the grey and white frozen tundra surrounding him. At first glance it seemed to be nothing more than some sort of rag doll suspended from the wall by its arms but as he grew nearer, he realized that it wasn't an inanimate object rather a person. A person he knew and had been worrying over for more than a week._

"_Fay-san!" the boy rushed towards the bloody mess that was Fay._

"What the heck happened to him?"_ the boy thought as he hurried over to the suspended blond. There was blood on the wall behind him, the red liquid was frozen on the ground beneath his feet and it had also turned his once white shirt and grey pant to red tatters. Large gashes were visible through the torn clothes but thankfully none of the wounds were bleeding. Syaoran could tell that the blond was still alive by the breath fogging before his mouth._

"_Hang in there Fay-san." Syaoran said as he looked around to find something that could free the man, "I'll get you down from there."_

"… _thi… ll… spe…" Syaoran heard a faint murmur. Looking back he saw a dull almost lifeless golden eye looking at him as Fay's mouth quivered ever so slightly._

-0-

"What do you mean you can't find them?" Kurogane growled dangerously. The doctor standing before him cowered in fear. The poor guy had probably wet his pants in fear. "A comatose vampire and a sick seventeen year old boy vanish from a ward in your hospital and you have no idea where they might be?"

"W-we are lo-looking for them, sir." The man squeaked like a girl.

"You have something like those camer-thingies installed in your wards right?" Kurogane inquired.

"It's called a camera." Mokona corrected the ninja in a quiet voice.

"In the corridors." The man replied weakly.

"Good, show us what they captured." Kurogane ordered.

"Th-this way."

_What a wimp. _Kurogane thought in disgust as he followed the shaking man.

"How could they have just vanished into thin air?" Mokona asked no one in particular once they replayed the video tape for the tenth time.

"As you can see, no one came in or left the room." The man in charge of the security said as he stopped the video tape.

"Manju lets go." Kurogane turned on his heels and left. Mokona hopped after the red eyed man as he got into the elevator and pushed the button for the 7th floor.

"Why are we back here?" Mokona asked as the two stepped inside the empty room that had been Fay's.

"Those idiots might have missed something." Was the reply.

MEKYO!

"There is a feather in here?" Kurogane looked at the dimension hopper.

"No." Mokona's ears drooped. "Mokona could feel its waves in here."

"Meaning?"

"The feather was used in here recently." Mokona said as it concentrated. "But it's gone now."

"Why didn't you feel it earlier?" Kurogane heaved a frustrated sigh.

"Something must have been blocking the feather's power." Mokona replied thoughtfully.

MEKYO!

"What is it now?" Kurogane grunted as he picked up a book he had seen Syaoran read the previous night.

"The feather is being used." Mokona declared as its eye remained round as dinner plates.

"Where?"

"Mokona is not sure but Mokona thinks it's coming from the crumbling castle."

-0-

"…_Fay-san..." the blond heard a voice call his name. Unlike the whispering wind, this voice was closer, much more real._

"_Hang in there Fay-san." he heard the voice speak once more, "I'll get you down from there."_

_This voice was not an illusion. The realization came in crashing on the blond in waves of relief. Someone had found him! But he had to warn his savior about this reality. Fay lifted his head up to look at the hazy mob of brown and flesh before his blurry vision. It was Syaoran. _

_But, if the boy was here than did it means that… but how was it even possible? This reality was something created to haunt _him _and him alone. Syaoran would not be affected by it. This nightmare was not a creation of the boy's mind._

_Could it be that whatever was causing all this had, for some reason, trapped the boy here because the teenager's own nightmare was destroyed? Had the creature been unable to trap Syaoran in a twisted reality in his own mind? Was this the reason why the boy was here with him?_

_Well whatever the reason, he had to let the boy know._

"… _thi… ll… spe…" his weakness caused the words to come out as soundless murmurs. Even then, it did get the boy's attention on him._

"_S… Spe... ll…" Fay tried to speak once more. He hoped with the bottom of his heart that the boy would get the meaning behind the word._

"_Spell?" Syaoran repeated. His eyes widened ever so slightly as the boy cast another look around him._

_Fay let out a sigh of relief as his head dropped on his chest._

-0-

_Syaoran looked around in shock._

_This place, what was it all? Was it all just some sort of illusion? Did that mean that the Fay before him was part of the illusion? Just like the Sakura and Clow country from his dreams before now?_

_But if Fay were an illusion, why had he just told him about it? What would the person trapping him in here gain from that? No. Maybe Fay was trapped in here with him. Or from the looks of it, he had been trapped here way before Syaoran arrived in this place, maybe somewhere around the same time when Syaoran had entered _that_ Clow country. _

_That Clow and Sakura had been from a life he had dreamt of once upon a time. It had been based upon a dream of his. Did that mean that this place was one of Fay's dreams? Or more appropriately, his nightmares perhaps?_

_Well, whatever the hell it was, Syaoran had to free Fay from those shackles and get him down. Something silver glinted in the snow at a distance of a few feet from him. Syaoran realized that it was a key as he bent to pick it up._

_What sort of game was their capturer trying to play with them? The boy thought as he tried to fit the key in the manacles around Fay's wrists. He turned the key and the shackles opened with an audible click. Immediately Fay slumped to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut off._

_The moment Fay hit the ground, a sharp pain shot through Syaoran's head._

"_Ahh!" Syaoran clutched his head as he felt thousands upon thousands of needles pinch the inside of his brain while something heavy pounded against his head. Syaoran's knees hit the ground before he collapsed on the snow next to Fay._

_Through the haze of pain, Syaoran could see Fay's dull golden eye stare at him as the vampire struggled to move his limbs. He could feel the cold seep in through his thin jacket as the snow melted beneath him due to his body temperature and wet his clothes. _

_But at the same time, for some reason, Syaoran could also see himself walk into a large, moonlit, dusty hall. He could feel a cool breeze play across his face as ocean waves crashed on some shore in the distance while something warm and heavy pressed down on his right shoulder._

_It was strange. It seemed as if he was in two places at once. He could see Fay struggle to move towards him as he lay there paralyzed in the snow due to his immense pain but he could also see himself carry something across the length of the hall to the very end where he started to climb a once grand but now crumbling staircase._

_Syaoran could see that Fay was speaking, his mouth moving to form words as, slowly but surely, the vampire inched across the snow towards him. Syaoran knew that the words he was speaking were accompanied by sounds. Funnily enough though, the boy heard nothing apart the silent tap of his feet against the stone and the sound of waves crashing against the seashore somewhere close by as he made his way to the top of the staircase. The ever present warm weight on his shoulder making itself known despite the snow that numbed his body as he lay on it, paralyzed._

_A feeling of dread clutched his heart as the boy saw himself walk down a long corridor and end up in a large ballroom; the same ballroom which had he balcony which overlooked the sea, the one Fay had fallen down from._

"_Don't worry," he heard himself speak in a cold yet gleeful voice as he dumped threw the weight off of his shoulder. The object landed in an unmoving heap at his feet. "It will all be over soon."_

_Syaoran saw himself kick the object with his foot to turn it over. His heart missed several beats as he found himself looking down at a familiar face._

-0-

_**A/N: Wow, this story is so far the most popular with you guys. I'm really glad you ppl like it.**_

_**A big thanks to all those who reviewed- anonymously or otherwise. The last part would be kind of confusing at present, no? I wonder why Syaoran can see himself at two places at the same time…**_

_**Kurogane: Won't **_**you**_** be the one who knows?**_

_**Me: Erm… yeah?**_

_**Kurogane: Then why are you wondering why the kid is at two places at the same time?**_

_**Me: (Exasperated) I **_**know**_** why. I was just trying to get the attention of the readers on that thing… seriously kuro-tan…**_

_**Kurogane: How many times do I have to lock you up in that closet before you learn to say my name properly?**_

_**Me: I already know how to say your name properly.**_

_**Kurogane: really? Tell me then. What is my name?**_

_**Me: your name is Kuroga… Kurogan… Kuro…**_

_**Kurogane: (cuts in by yelling at the author) Just say it already!**_

_**Me: impatient aren't we today? Fine. Fine. Its… KURO-TAN!!!**_

_**Kurogane: Finally she got it right… Hey!**_

_**Me: (snickers and runs off for the sake of dear life)**_

_**Kurogane: (struggling to get out of the chair.) HEY! GET BACK HERE YOU CRAZY DEMENTED AUTHOR! WHO SAID YOU COULD GLUE MY CHAIR?!? JUST WAIT TILL I GET OUT OF HERE! YU ARE DEAD! YOU HEAR ME?**_

_**Me: (in the other corner of the world. Kurogane's yelling and cursing can still be heard in the distance) ahem… well yeah. So like I was saying earlier… wonder why Syaoran is in two places at one? Or is it even Syaoran himself that the boy is seeing in the ruined castle???**_

_**Find out that and a lot more in the next chapter of "What the hell?"**_

_**Till then **_

_**Ciao!**_

_**PS. Don't forget to review. :)**_


	8. Not THIS all over again

_Fay felt his body drop to the ground the minute the shackles clicked open. Fay tried to move his head and discovered, much to his joy, that his limbs were actually following his brain's commands for once. Energy started to seep into his body like a fresh breath of air._

_Fay realized that with the shackles no longer there to sap him off of his energy, strength was returning to his body. Soon he would be able to move about and probably even break free of this spell._

_As his vision started to clear, Fay saw Syaoran's face. But something was wrong. The boy was lying in the snow right next to him, clutching his head with both hands as his body shivered violently._

"_Syaoran-kun?" Fay asked as he inched towards the boy. His voice sounded weak but at least the sound was there. It was taking every ounce of strength that the vampire possessed to wriggle in that direction but the more he moved, the easier it became for him._

_The brown haired boy's face was twisted up in pain as he stared at him with cloudy eyes. Even if he was no longer a magician, Fay could still detect magic when it was there. Looking at the teen before him, Fay could easily tell that he was under the influence of a spell. The exact type he was still unsure of but a spell it was all the same._

_Suddenly a non-existent wind began to blow at a distant of four feet from the two. Right behind Syaoran, the snow whipped and twirled around in some magical whirlwind which slowly began to dissipate as a grey smoke appeared in its place. The monstrosity that wore his brother's face materialized out of the smoke, the same inhuman and insane grin on his face as his blue lifeless orbs glinted with an inner darkness._

"_Hello again, Yuui."_

-0-

"It's definitely here," Mokona told the ninja as he stopped the rented corolla outside the old crumbling castle. "Mokona can feel its waves the strongest over here."

The only response the white dimension hopper got from the raven-haired man was a slight narrowing of eyes as he observed the structure bathed in the moonlight. He reached for his sword lying on the seat next to him.

"Let's go." The words uttered in a low growl as Kurogane got out of the vehicle and made his way towards the building before them.

"Mokona hopes Syaoran and Fay are alright." The rabbit mumbled quietly from its perch on the ninja's shoulder as the dimension traveler from Nihon silently walked down the long, drafty and partially moonlit corridor.

"Me too." Maybe when he had started the journey, Kurogane would have never admitted to something like that, but now things were a lot different. Hell, _he _was a lot different.

"Where to?" his voice was low.

"Upstairs," came the reply, almost immediately.

-0-

"_So, the boy found the key." The ghost in Fay's form said with a chuckle as he observed the struggling vampire in the snow._

"…" _Fay paid the creature no heed as he continued to wriggle his way over to Syaoran. Well it was more like, drag his way over to the boy at his pace it could easily pass for wriggling._

"_Do you think you'll be able to help him once you get to him?" the ghost asked as he ran his finger over the bloody sword's blade which was in his hand._

"_What did you do to him?" Fay's voice was laced with venom as he looked past the boy, at the face of the one he had loved more than his own life. The vampire's eye was burning with the fires of hell. He wanted nothing more than to run the thing through with the very sword the creature held in its hands._

_How dare he wear the face of his twin? How dare he torment the ones he held dear? How dare that _thing _try to take it all from the boy who had already given up everything? _

_True, he did not know about the past of _this _Syaoran, but the boy was Syaoran all the same. And Fay could easily read Syaoran, like an open book. Those soulful brown eyes held way too much sorrow for one person to bear. But apart from the sorrow, they also held a burning passion, a passion to set everything straight, sort out all the messes and make all the troubles go away…_

"_Not much really," the creature replied. "Till now, at least."_

"_What have you done to Syaoran?" Fay repeated his question in a slower, more menacing tone._

"_The same thing that I did to you," came the calm reply. "Although I put your _body_ into a coma and I put _his _soul into one."_

"_What?" no matter how much Fay hated it; he could not keep the surprise out of his voice. The fact that he was in a coma came as no big surprise to the ex-magician. There was no other answer to what he was going through actually. Trap the soul of a person inside an alternate reality in said person's mind and viola! You get a comatose person._

_But a comatose soul? It was a possibility... But only in theory._

_The amount of magical strength it required… that was unbelievable… Okay, so maybe he might have been able to do that had he wanted to, back when he had all of his magic, but, for a ghost to have been able to accomplish such a feat… It was just impossible._

_A ghost was merely a shadow of a once living person. There was no way a ghost could posses enough magical strength to do such a thing. Unless…_

"_The feather…" Fay breathed as realization dawned upon him._

-0-

_There was nothing he could do. He was paralyzed in the land of snow, watching Fay speak to someone behind him with nothing but hated and loathing in that single gold eye. The eye had assumed the form of a cat-like slit which told Syaoran that his companion was extremely POed._

_But at the same time he was looking down at the same face, only difference being that this time the vampire's face was calm. His single eye closed as though if he was sleeping peacefully. This Fay was unconscious._

_What the hell was wrong with him? Why in the friggin world was he in two places at the same time, watching two different Fays- both being his travelling companions, unable to do a single thing in either world? In one place, he couldn't move because his body was paralyzed, his muscles no longer able to respond to his brain's commands. While in the other world, he _could_ move but, the commands given out by his brain to his motor organs were ones he could not control. It was as though he was just a helpless spectator in both places._

_He saw the conscious Fay's eye widen in surprise. Although he could not hear what the vampire had uttered, he could easily read his lips as they formed the words, "The feather."_

_Something akin cold dread settled in the pit of his stomach as Syaoran felt his arm move towards the pocket of his jacket. The coldness increased a hundred fold as his fingers clasped around the piece of cool metal._

_In the pit of the sinner's, the original's mind was screaming at him to do something as the boy watched his body move of its own accord. In the other world, the boy was screaming at his mind to do something. __**(A/N: original's mind as in R Syaoran's mind. Sorry thought I should clarify. ;) )**_

_His body was not under his control and Syaoran did not like the direction in which things were proceeding. Syaoran would have screamed if he could have. What the hell was he doing? This was so wrong. He could not be doing this to Fay-san. He could not be doing this to himself._

_Syaoran tried to struggle, he tried to stop himself. But all his attempts resulted in were slight twitches of his body in the Pit of the Sinners. Nothing was happening in the other world. Why wasn't anything happening? Why wouldn't his body listen? Why? Why?_

_His twitches were increasing in intensity. He could see concern and worry appear on Fay's face. A sharp pain shot through his entire being, numbing his mind and body, both. For a fleeting second, Syaoran could hear what was going on around him in the Pit of the Sinners._

"_How troublesome." He heard a childish yet cold voice say in a bored tone._

"_You bastard!" he heard Fay yell at the same time as the vampire lifted himself off the ground o his knees. Then the silence was back again. The voices were completely muted around him in the Pit of Sinners but that did not mean that he could not hear his own excited breathing in the other world. He could hear the waves crashing on the shore somewhere and he could hear the wind whistle through the holes in the walls behind him. And he could definitely hear the low, menacing growl coming from the same direction __**(meaning behind him)**__._

"_Kid!"_

_Halting what he was doing, the boy turned around to face the newcomer._

"_Ah. Kurogane," he heard himself speak pleasantly, "took you long enough."_

-0-

His footfalls made minimal sound as he climbed the huge staircase, coming to a stop at the very top. Wordlessly, looked at his right shoulder.

"That way." Mokona replied quietly as it pointed to the right side of the staircase. There was long corridor in that direction with dark and heavy wooden doors at the very end. They were slightly open, the ninja could tell this much but not enough for him to determine what exactly was taking place on the other side.

Quickly and silently, Kurogane made his way over to the said object and snuck inside through the gap. He was in a large hall type room with huge roof to floor windows lining the wall in front of him. Moonlight was pouring in through the windows, intact- which was only one- and broken alike, illuminating the scene before him.

A scene Kurogane could swear would haunt his dreams for the rest of the life if he didn't do something. This was like Tokyo all over again. The unfamiliar aura surrounding the kid, the way he was bent over the unmoving mage, the way he felt like he was too late once again, the way he had felt he was failing all over again… everything. Everything was just like back then.

Kurogane wasn't even aware of the low growl emitting from his throat as his hand tightened its grip around the hilt of Ginryuu. The kid froze in his actions as anger seemed to radiate off of Kurogane.

The man made up his mind. He was _not _going to let this one end like Tokyo. No. Never again. He was going to put a stop to this.

"Manju, look for the feather." Kurogane said in a whisper even he barely heard. But he felt Mokona hop off and move away from him all the same.

"Kid!" his voice made the boy turn around and smile at him with a satisfied look on his face.

"Ah. Kurogane," the boy spoke in a calm tone. Kurogane could see those soft brown eyes currently alight with an inner darkness, "took you long enough."

"What the f--k is the meaning of all this?" Kurogane growled.

"Of what?" Syaoran asked innocently as he let go of Fay's bleeding wrist. The comatose vampire's arm fell to the ground, with the wound remaining as it was, not healing, and oozing out the crimson liquid onto the stone floor. There was a small pocket knife lying right next to the unmoving Fay. The dull, rusted silver also stained with red.

"What the hell have you done to them?" the ninja's growl grew more feral as he raised his sword.

-0-

_**A/N: And this is where I shall end this chapter. I hope I answered a few of the questions that I had managed to accumulate till now. Although I do know I raised a lot of new ones to take their place. Oh well. **_

_**Hehehe… I left it all hanging. ;) **_

_**What was Syaoran doing to Fay? Answers anyone? I'll be giving out cookies to all those who do answer and I will put in the name of the person who gets the guess closest to what I shall reveal in the next chapter. :) **_

_**Next chapter will contain more explanations and clarifications on what is going on. And then, we shall have action. Yes! After all what are my multi-chaptered fics without their little doze of super awesome butt kicking fights? (okay so maybe I exaggerated a little bit. Not that good at describing fight scenes but still, you get the point, no?) And now I know I'm rambling...**_

_**Anywho, people if there are any questions or motives you want answered leave me a PM or review stating your query. (I sound weird.) I will try my best to explain it in the next update because I think that will be the last one where I will explain things…or not. But I don't want to miss out on anything so please don't hesitate.**_

_**Don't forget to review.**_

_**Ciao!**_


	9. I want EVERYTHING

_**A/N: I know. I know. I took way too long to update. My apologies for the wait.**_

_**Lately, I sort of could find any motivation to write. I had originally planned on making this chapter longer, but seeing how I'm too busy with real life issues nowadays, I decided to just put up what little I had managed to write before. Hope it's not too much of a disappointment.**_

_**PS. Okay so one of the reviewers asked me what a comatose soul was. **_

_**Your question was not stupid at all. You got the right idea. A comatose soul is when a soul is put into a coma, so yeah the body itself will still be awake. I guess you can say the person would still be able to move about and all but not without someone giving instructions to it.**_

_**Just a small note to all those anonymous reviewers out there.**_

_**People, I don't mind if you want to keep on reviewing anonymously. I'm happy that you take out time to review my work but when you ask questions such as these, I don't have any means to respond to you personally like I normally do through PM or Review replies. If you would like me to explain what's going on in more detail just drop me a PM. K?**_

_**Alrighty then, on with the fic!**_

_**Remember, there's nothing better than a good encouraging/constructively criticizing review that pulls authors out of slumps and negative emotions, so don't hesitate to click on that pretty little button down there.**_

_**Enjoy.**_

"_What the hell have you done to them?" the ninja's growl grew more feral as he raised his sword._

"Not much," Syaoran said in a light manner as his tone changed from one of feigned innocence to that of cold amusement. "Till now."

"Why did you take the kid?" the ninja growled angrily.

Syaoran tilted his head to one side, his expression giving nothing away.

"You're not really him," Kurogane narrowed his eyes to deadly slits. This blank expressionless face before him… brought back memories of the time he had first failed to protect those he held dear. "Even if you look like him." This sounded way too much like what he had said to the kid back in Tokyo, for Kurogane's liking.

"Why did you make him poison them?"

"Wouldn't be much of a watchful ninja if you had failed to notice that, I suppose?" Syaoran gave a laugh. "And here I thought I had managed to make it all very confusing. But," he paused deliberately as he regarded the red-eyed man before him. "How could you detect my presence when that white puff ball could not?"

"He doesn't sense spirits." Kurogane replied.

"Ah," the brunette nodded; satisfied with the answer he had received. "of course."

"Now that I have answered your question, you will answer mine." Kurogane's voice was nothing like his previous growls, but there was no mistaking the malicious edge to his tone. "_What do you want from them?"_

A cold smirk spread on Syaoran's face as he evaluated the ninja. His chocolate brown eyes glinted ever so slightly as his mouth formed one single word.

"Everything."

-0-

"_Yeah, that's right." Fay's corpse grinned wickedly at the blond, "I want everything. I want his life, your life, his magic and your powers."_

_Fay could only stare as the implications of what that meant became clearer to the golden eyed vampire._

"_You understand what that means, huh?" the ghost said coolly._

_Fay noticed that Syaoran was struggling. His body was twitching like he was having a seizure or something, but sensing the erratic pattern of magical energy escaping from his being; Fay could tell that the brunette teen was actually trying to break free. Just when Syaoran's own energy started dominating that of the ghost, the skeleton like corpse of his twin's look-alike moved his hand in a lazy sweep._

_A burst of familiar yet tainted magic hit the original, his body freezing up the instant it made contact. His pupils dilated as his mouth opened in an attempt to scream; only no sound came out. "How troublesome." The ghost remarked in a tone which barely masked his contempt._

"_You bastard!" Fay could feel his anger flare up as his single gold-eye transformed to a cat-like slit, as was the norm whenever he was angry. In a surprising show of strength, Fay pushed himself to his knees as his shoulders shook from the rage he was feeling at that moment. It was anger and hatred he had not even felt when he was being repeatedly skewered by that sadistic bastard who had chosen his dead brother's form just to torment him. _This _was a hate that he felt that could rival his hate towards a certain monocle-wearing, butt-chinned dimension meddler with a twisted wish._

"_You know," the apparition before him said casually, not in the least bit unnerved by the hatred now rolling off of the blond magician-come-vampire, "about a century back the hunter's association would have intervened by now."His tone hinted disappointment of the fact that no one had tried to thwart his plans so far._

"_You were a vampire hunter." Fay said in a disgusted tone. It was not the fact that itself that revolted the ex-magician. It was what this particular hunter had in mind that had him recoiling in revulsion._

"_Strange, isn't it?" the form of his dead twin asked with an amused laugh. "Those old fools thought I was a disgrace." He clearly sounded amused at that but then slowly his expression darkened. "They were weak, sniveling old coots who wanted nothing more than the illusion of a false sense of security that the end of the war provided._

"_So what if I had captured those young twin pure-bloods?"_

_Despite his hatred and disgust Fay could not keep his single eye from widening in surprise._

"_Oh yes." The corpse gave an inhuman grin at Fay's shock, "I had attempted to do this back when I was alive. Too bad, I was ambushed and captured before I had the chance to do it though. But now, with the association out of the way, nothing can stop me."_

-0-

_Syaoran could feel his body move of its own accord to grab Fay's bleeding wrist in a single fluid movement. He could sense Kurogane tense up when his other hand moved to cover the cut on the vampire's arm. He could hear see the weak rise and fall of the blond vampire's chest and he could hear the slow drawing of his breathing. He could do all that, and yet he could do nothing at all. His body was not under his control._

"_He's of no use to me if he's dead." he heard himself say simply as he removed his hand to see a sort of translucent swirling layer cover the injury to keep it from bleeding. It was just pressurized air, he realized as he let go of the blond man's arm. _

_His body could still use magic even without him being in control, did that mean that…_

"_Now then Kurogane," he heard himself speak, "we can chat with ease without having to worry about the vampire dying before his time."_

"_We're not going to talk," Kurogane growled. "I'm going to kick your ghostly ass out of the kid's body and then, I'm going to _kill_ you."_

"_What? You're not going to even listen to me rant for a while?" the brown haired boy heard his voice speak with mock disappointment. The ninja before simply raised his sword in response._

"_Don't you want to question my motives?" he felt his mouth form those words as his head tilted to one side. "Ask me why I'm doing all this?"_

"_You're a psychopath intent on destroying two preci… important lives," he heard Kurogane's low voice. "There's nothing more to it."_

"_That is where you are wrong, ninja." It sounded strange to hear his own voice speak to Kurogane in such a manner. "I don't plan on destroying two lives. Oh no." his laughter was cruel and inhumane. "I plan to destroy so much more." As his mouth formed these words, Syaoran felt his arms come together, palms held facing one another as a familiar energy surged through them. His hands clapped together and his sword materialized between them in a flash of blue light as he brought them apart._

-0-

_**A/N: I'm horrible to them, aren't I? Atleast, however vaguely, I still clarified **_**some**_**things. So be grateful! ^.^"**_

_**On a small side note, I'm not giving up on any of my fics just yet but it might be a while before I update any of my other fics. Real life problems and all that stuff… so er yeah… I'll just let you people head over to let your opinions be known. ;) (hint: click on that button down there. You know you want to.)**_


	10. You cant win

_**A/N: Hmm, after a really long wait, I bring you, Ch 10 of What the hell**_

_**I would like to thank Lilacheart for this chapter since she wrote quite a lot of it for me since I was stuck with work and university and whatnot.**_

_**Anyhow, I hope you enjoy reading it, since even though I made you wait for sooo long, this chappie here is well over 4000 words.**_

_**Enjoy. **_

_**And don't forget to review.**_

_**SorryI didn't add this here earlier but this chapter is dedicated to Lilacheart and all those wonderful, faithful readers out there.  
**_

-0-

Kurogane was on edge the moment Syaoran summoned his sword. He wasn't completely sure of what would happen if he lost this fight, but whatever it might be, Kurogane knew this much: He could not let it happen. Besides, winning the fight was the least of Kurogane's worries. The real problem that he faced was much, much bigger.

"I don't think I need to point this out but..." Syaoran drawled lazily as a smirk spread across his lips. "This body _is_ still that kid's, so trying to kill me now, while I have possession over it, would not be a very good idea, no?"

The red-eyed ninja didn't show any signs that of having heard the brunette, even though he had heard every word of what came out of his mouth. As if he needed _that_ reminder. He was already fully aware of the consequences if he tried to seriously injure the kid.

"I must say though," the amber eyed boy continued in a conversational manner. "It _does_ possess wonderful amounts of magic, just like that vampire possesses purebred vampire's blood in his veins… Magic and immortality…" he seemed to be talking more to himself then to Kurogane. "That would be nice...but I can just settle for the latter too."

Kurogane had just about heard enough of this. Rage boiled his blood as anger reared its ugly head in his mind. In a flash, the ninja sprinted forward.

In response, Syaoran just smiled in a cruel twisted manner. It was a rather disturbing grin, not one he had ever seen on the kid's face before.

"This should be over soon," the brunette muttered under his breath, before charging as well.

-0-

_"Nothing can stop you, huh?" Fay muttered under his breath. Words did not describe how much he loathed the figure in front of him. The one that wore his brother's face. The one trying to tear away his life and Syaoran's. It was more the latter that was pissing him off right now._

_"Well, _you_ certainly can't," the ghost pointed out. "I doubt you can even stand."_

_Fay knew he was right. He was in no condition to fight. At least, for the time being. His arms and legs were aching like hell and his muscles were screaming in protest. He had no idea how much longer he could stay in that position. Getting your body pierced by a frozen blade over and over again did that to you._

_But just because he knew his position did not mean he had to like it._

_"What more do you have to gain from this...!?" Fay snarled._

_"Nothing that deals with you," the one wearing his brother's form said coolly. "Nothing major anyway. Just exacting some well deserved revenge."_

_Fay had a fairly good idea of what that meant._

_"On the vampire hunters," the ex-magician spoke in a quiet voice. The thing before him disgusted him. Those hunters used to be his comrades._

_"Not just the hunters," the ghostly apparition said in a rather off-handed manner. "The vampire society, the vampire hunting association..._

"_The two twin purebloods I had, escaped because of that damned vampire hunting association." His tone darkened, depicting his irritation. "I was tried, persecuted, and executed, just for the lies they tried to hide behind. Made even stranger that vampire hunters were actually_ protecting_ those damned vampires." He shook his head in disgust. _

"_What I still don't get is , where we fit into all of this?" Fay prompted in a low growl._

_"Do you really want to know the truth?" The ghost's tone was mocking. Fay didn't answer._

_"I was just lucky enough to be there when that brat came in." The ghost cast a lazy glance in the paralyzed boy's direction. In a more accusing tone, he added "You could say this is all his fault."_

-0-

_Numbness and pain, those were the only things Syaoran could feel as he lay, frozen in the snow. In this world, he heard nothing but silence. As though someone had covered his ears using a heavy blanket, blocking out all sound. He could see Fay's mouth forming words, speaking to the entity that stood behind him. The look on his face was one of utter contempt and hatred. Even though, the vampire looked so pale and weak, that had he been any other person he wouldn't even have been able to move. Yet Syaoran noticed that the ex-magician was slowly but steadily climbing to his feet._

_In the other word, Syaoran felt himself lean against his summoned sword in a lazy manner._

_Once again, Syaoran felt his lips part and his tongue roll to form the words. His ears picked up the sounds that his mouth made. "I don't think I need to point this out but.._._This body is still that kid's, so trying to kill me now, while I have possession over it would not be a very good idea, no?"_

_The ninja gave no outward reaction to the words that had left his mouth, but the teen could tell he was worried all the same._

"_I must say though," he heard himself continue. "It _does_ possess wonderful amounts of magic, just like that vampire possesses purebred vampire's blood in his veins… Magic and immortality…" this part of the conversation seemed to be intended more for his own ears than Kurogane's. "That would be nice...but I can just settle for the latter too."_

_It seemed to Syaoran as though Kurogane had had enough of this all, since he raised his sword and lunged forward with an angry snarl._

_"This should be over soon," he heard himself mutter as his arms readied the sword before his body charged as well._

_The sound of swords clashing against one another as the ocean raged against the coastline in the distance were the only things Syaoran could hear for a while. He watched like a silent spectator from his own eyes, as the violent swordfight took place between his body and his mentor. Syaoran could tell with ease that the red-eyed man was holding back. Not enough that he would lose to him, but just enough so that he wouldn't hurt Syaoran._

_In the other world, he could see the snow, and he could see Fay speaking to the shriveled up corpse look-alike of his twin, the real Fay._

_Forcing himself to ignore the sound of clashing swords and his own excited breathing, Syaoran focused his mind against the magical bonds holding his body paralyzed in the snow covered world. After a short while, the numbness and the pain began to recede. Syaoran could almost feel his limbs. _

"_It's working," he thought somewhat hopefully. The moment this thought crossed his mind, however, the pain returned, numbing his frozen body and mind at the same time. Sharp stabs of pain shot through his skull, making him feel as though his brain was about to explode._

_"Damnit!" He cursed, trying to gasp for a breath. He didn't know if he had drawn any air into his lungs, and he wondered if he was breathing at all. He just couldn't tell anymore. The pain was just too much. Everything was getting confusing. In one world he was drawing in air and moving about, dodging and attacking his mentor, while in the other world he was gasping or perhaps trying to gasp, trying to move despite the haze of pain that surrounded him. Here, his lungs were screaming in protest, his mind was screaming in pain and his whole body was being wracked by tremors which were beyond his control._

_Was he going to die here...?_

"_You could say this is all his fault." Through the pain induced haze, Syaoran heard a distant voice speak. _

_Syaoran tried to move once again, hoping against hope that maybe, this time it would work. Maybe this time he would break the spell. But all he got in the end was one heck of a headache. After what seemed like ages but had been in fact just a few seconds, Syaoran couldn't even tell if he was struggling anymore._

_He just lay there, body twitching every now and then, feeling more hopeless then he had ever felt in his entire life. And what was more, somewhere deep down he knew that that voice was right. He hated it, but he had to agree. Everything _was_ his fault.__ Why couldn't he have just been paying attention at that freaking castle!?_

_His guilt and misery began to drown him, suffocating him, burying him beneath the cold, frozen snow._

_Wait a second, it wasn't just his imagination. _

_His paralyzed body _was_ being buried under snow. Panic seemed to grip at his heart. He couldn't die here. Not now. Not like this. He still had so much to do._

_Hating himself for being unable to do anything, just like all those other times when he had been trapped in his watery prison, Syaoran struggled. Once again he tried to break through the magic holding him down. _

_This time however, the pain was not what bound him in his place. No, actually it played a smaller part. It was still there, lingering in the background. But for some reason, this time it felt as though, he was getting bound to the floor._

_He loosened up for a second, trying to make sense of the situation. So wrapped up and focused was he, in his attempt to break free, that the world where he was battling Kurogane seemed far away. Like a distant dream or thought in the back of his mind._

_Forcing himself to calm down, Syaoran focused his attention on what was going on between the ghost and Fay. He now knew that before he could attempt to take back control of his body in the world with Kurogane, he had to take control of it here, in this frozen tundra._

_Looking over in Fay's direction, he realized something. He'd never seen Fay look so angry. Ever._

_Fay's mouth moved, his lips curling into a snarl. Judging from the ghost's reaction however, Syaoran knew that whatever it was that the ex-magician had said, deeply irritated the ghost. _

_The apparition's fists were clenched by its side as its face twisted in rage._

_Swords colliding in the distance, the wind howling against his ears as he swiftly moved away from the slashing katana, the moonlight illuminating the ruined castle, overlapped with his vision of the snow covered graveyard with dead bodies strewn everywhere and piled against one of the walls._

_And yet… Although he could see what was happening in both places, there was not a single thing he could do in either of them. No matter how much he struggled, no matter how hard he tried, in the end he was nothing more than a silent spectator, watching from the sidelines, all that was about to unfold._

_Icy tendrils of snow snaked their way along his body, burying him deeper and deeper while he remained helpless and motionless. The last thing he saw before being covered in it completely was the desperate look on Fay's face as he tried to reach out towards him._

-0-

Mokona pushed its way through a collapsed portion of the abandoned castle. Some of the chunks were as big as it was. It grabbed the rock in front of it and scrambled up, trying to get a better overview of its surroundings.

"Mekyo!" Feeling the waves of energy, its eyes flew open again. The feather was here...The only problem was it just couldn't find out where!

The magical rabbit felt what it could only describe as shame. If anything, this would be the one time it had been able to truly help. Every other time, all it could have done was offer encouragement or wait around.

Even when Syaoran had stopped breathing, due to the poison, all it could do was freak out. It had been able to do nothing at all.

Now, when it finally had a task… When, finally, everyone else was depending on it… It couldn't do the one thing it had been born to do. In the distance, it heard the sound of a sword colliding against another sword.

"Kurogane...Syaoran..." It whimpered, scrabbling its way up a larger piece of rock. It tried to pinpoint the location of the energy, but the strong power of the feather was spread throughout the castle, making it practically impossible to locate the source.

Mokona tried to think about all of possible outcomes of this.

It didn't like any of them.

"Mokona won't give up," it told itself, giving itself a thorough shake, thinking of all the times everything had seemed hopeless. Yet, Syaoran had always remained determined. He had never given up. So now, neither would Mokona.

It had to focus, it decided as it looked around the crumbling ruin.

If the feather wasn't in plain view, it had to be hidden behind something. Under something. Maybe it'd have to Ncha cannon a few things before it could find it. But it would find it. No matter what. The strength of its resolve flowed through its tiny body, filling it up with hope and confidence.

"Oh, so this is what the other Syaoran feels like," Mokona muttered to itself, realizing the strange feelings welling up inside it. With renewed vigor, it scrambled up another piece of rock, feeling around for the source of the magical waves with all its might.

In the end, it all came down to when it found it. It had to hurry.

-0-

"It's not like you to pull punches, Kurogane," Syaoran taunted the ninja, leaping upwards and bringing his sword down over Kurogane's head. He intercepted the blow, throwing the blade sideways, trying to disarm the boy. His attempt resulted in a failure when Syaoran did not let go. The brown-haired boy spun around, landed, and attempted to kick Kurogane in the stomach. He narrowly dodged the strike by quickly recoiling.

"An interesting fighting style this boy knows," he remarked conversationally. "I've never seen anything like it."

"How do know all of this!?" Kurogane yelled in frustration, as he attempted to force 'Syaoran' backwards.

"His mind's like an open book. Anything he knows, I know. Like, say, the fact that Fay depends on your blood to live. Good thing to know, really, if I'm going after immortality, I can't have that, now, can I?"

Kurogane did what he'd grown accustomed to doing by this point: pretending to ignore the guy some more.

"Speaking of his memories," the amber-eyed boy said as a sneer contorted his face. "What happened to your philosophy, Kurogane?"

Kurogane snorted with annoyance as he blocked a blow that was aimed at his neck.

"In the very beginning, it seems," the kid pushed his sword against the ninja's. "You said you wouldn't stick your neck out for anyone, and you were only concerned for yourself."

"Things change," he grunted in response. "For better or for worse!" The red-eyed man swung his sword to push the other's weapon away from him before jabbing at 'Syaoran's' feet in an attempt to have him step back.

Perhaps on purpose, the boy didn't. He did not even flinch as the sword went right through his foot. It was almost as if he didn't notice for a moment.

"Oops." He grinned manically at the ninja, as if it didn't matter, before bringing his own sword down on Kurogane's head. Reluctantly but without hesitation, he pulled the sword from Syaoran's foot and blocked. He would feel guilty about that later.

"Oh, and by the way, I know that things change. After all, I wasn't in this position a month ago." He laughed. "Plenty living people, none of them too bright, might I add, come to this castle on dares from their equally idiotic friends." He spoke all this while he and Kurogane kept on fighting violently, Kurogane on defensive, not wanting to hurt 'Syaoran' again. But damn, did he wish this bastard would just _shut up!_

"My plan was just to get rid of him." He swung his sword towards the right.

Kurogane blocked.

"It wouldn't be the first time." he pulled the weapon back, only to swing it towards the older man's neck.

_Do you get your kicks from killing innocent bystanders!?_ Kurogane had thought it was impossible to hate this guy more. Wow, was he wrong.

"The last thing I expected was the poison bullet meant for him to be intercepted by a vampire." Another swing of his sword.

"I got lucky, I guess," he said in a monotone as he somehow managed to slash open the side of Kurogane's arm.

If the ghost hadn't possessed the body of his apprentice, of all people, Kurogane might have just killed him then and there.

Mentally reminding himself that doing so would not be a good idea, Kurogane instead asked something that had been bugging him for quite some time now. "How does a ghost have a poison bullet gun?"

The boy merely shrugged. "I'd say you might find out when you're dead."

-0-

_Abruptly, the wind picked up, and Fay shuddered violently, his wounds only making things worse. He could see the snow beginning to cover Syaoran's body or the embodiment of his soul trapped in the vampire's mind._

_Fay could see the fear in Syaoran's amber eyes as he realized what was happening. But despite his fear, Fay knew that the boy was struggling to break through the spell. The twitches and small spasms that wracked the younger boy's body were evidence of that. _

_But knowing that his struggles alone were not going to be enough, Fay reached for the paralyzed boy. A feeling of desperation overcame the ex-magician. He realized that he was not going to make it in time. Snow had already started to cover Syaoran's face. Two more seconds and he would be gone._

_He was almost there. Fay stretched his fingers, trying frantically to reach him in time, only to have his hand stepped on by the ghost._

_"I'd leave _him_ if I were you," he said conversationally. _

"_No!" Fay cried out as the amber-eyed boy disappeared from his view._

_"I'm amazed at how easy it is to possess this kid." The ghostly apparition gave a shake of its head. "Perhaps they drain themselves when they worry too much."_

_Fay shot him a look of pure rage and hatred.  
_

_"Syaoran-kun's been through much worse than you ever have." He snarled angrily, now focusing his remaining energy on making himself stand up. _

So have I_, Fay admitted to himself as strength began to return to his injured limbs. The ghost, however, didn't seem to care._

_"I'll admit, though, he's not dimwitted," The ghost continued as though he had not been interrupted at all. "He did manage to see through that mirage I placed him under in his dreams." _

_"Wh---What...!?" Having been unconscious all that time, Fay had not known about this._

_"I gave him a hallucination so his soul and mind would be elsewhere while I took possession of his body. He didn't fall for it. It takes a lot of strength to break from something like that." He shrugged. "Though, that didn't stop me from putting his soul into a coma here and escaping to the castle." He smiled. _

_"Don't expect him to ever wake up, by the way." He told the blond vampire who had managed to climb to one foot. "You know that he and Kurogane are fighting right now?"_

_Fay froze in mid crouch upon hearing this._

"_Once I'm done with that ninja, I'll use the boy's body to become a vampire."_

"_You can't beat Kurogane that easily," Fay said quietly as he resumed his struggle to get back on his own legs._

"_As a matter of fact," the ghost said simply. "I can. The fool is holding back. After all, he doesn't want to hurt the boy's body."_

"_It's a shame, really," he said, looking at Fay whilst shaking his head._

"_You had been the one I was after. But once I found out that your body needs to rely on Kurogane's blood to survive, it became useless to me. Such a weakness is unacceptable."_

_Fay narrowed his visible eye as the ghost spoke the next part._

"_Besides, with that boy, I'll have immortality _and_ magic."_

_"You're insane," The vampire snarled, just as his nails elongated into sharp claws._

_Somehow, this drew a reaction from the ghost. His fists clenched, and he gritted his teeth._

_"...Now I think about it, you're just like him..." He made a face, drawing his sword. "You're exactly like him." Fay didn't ask any questions. The ghost's brows furrowed as he suddenly lunged forward.  
_

_"You look exactly like the one who killed me!"_

-0-

Kurogane and 'Syaoran' skidded to a halt, both of them exhausted, panting heavily as sweat trailed down their faces. But even then, neither of them was really willing to show it. Kurogane could tell that the boy was wearing out, at the most. Actually, his body was wearing out. He couldn't tell much about the ghost itself.

Looking at the two, though, it was obvious that Kurogane had more injuries. He actually found that holding back was a bit harder than doing the real damage. He wasn't sure what he could do without just outright killing the boy in front of him. Where the hell had the pork bun gone off to?

"Don't you get it?" Syaoran said, covering a weary tone in his voice with a smug one. "You can't win this."

Magic crackled around Syaoran's body.

"Raitei Shôrai!"

He wondered why magic hadn't come up earlier. Now that it had, he was rather worried about how much longer this battle might stretch. If something didn't happen soon, one of them was going to have to die. What would happen to Syaoran's soul if his body was run through with a blade? Kurogane didn't want to find out.

He leapt backwards before spinning around. "Hama Ryu O Jin!"

The two attacks colliding before both fading out. Just as they did, Syaoran ran through the smoke, charging at Kurogane.

"Damnit!" Kurogane swore, going back to defending himself.

-0-

_Syaoran had practically given up trying to struggle, at least, for the moment. Nothing was happening. He could no longer see what was going on with Fay, thanks to being buried under quite a lot of snow. On the other hand, he was desperately trying to control what little he _could_ see of his battle with Kurogane, but to no avail. And his foot hurt. Somehow, this was a nice change to the whole numbness factor._

_Everything was cold. He couldn't hear, he couldn't speak, he couldn't move, though his body was all tensed up. He couldn't make a single sound._

**"You sure have a lot of interesting stuff to find in your head,"**_ A smirking voice spoke all of a sudden. Almost immediately he could tell one thing. It was the ghost. _**"That girl of yours. Sakura. Sounds really nice. Reminds me of someone I once knew."**

_Syaoran wanted to answer that bastard so badly. He tried to force a sound past his numb lips._

…

_Nothing._

**"It's a shame. All of those wishes of yours. Nothing will become of them. No matter what happens, your soul will eventually start to fade away. As a matter of fact, it already is."**

"Shut up!"_Syaoran thought angrily. He didn't want to believe the words of a monster like this._

**"Your soul, in this state, will continue to fade out of existence. In the end, there will be nothing left," **_it continued._ **"If there's no soul, there's no afterlife, you know."**

I _will_ get out of this, _Syaoran thought firmly, trying to struggle again. He was trying his best to force some life back into his frozen limbs, but no matter what he did, it bore no fruit. He tried again anyway._

**"Pity,"**_ The voice spoke in his head again._ **"That girl you've worked so hard to protect. That vampire **

**you've tried to help recover, even though you were the one who nearly got him killed. That ninja who's been teaching you everything. That weird rabbit you've befriended. You'll never see any of them again. All of your work in vain."**

_Syaoran felt the energy beginning to leave his body, making him go limp, beneath the frozen wasteland. It was as if he were running out of air and suffocating. He gasped for a breath, but it felt like he was inhaling water. Despite this, he kept trying to breathe. Darkness was beginning to creep along the edges of his vision filled with white._

_The boy found himself focusing all of his thoughts on maintaining consciousness, if he was even conscious right now. It was hard to tell. Everything was getting confusing and disorientating once again._

I'm not going to die,_ he thought bitterly._ Not like this.

**"Huh. Stubborn little kid, aren't you?"** _the ghost's mocking voice sounded in his ears. _**"What you don't seem to realize is that you have no say in what happens in the future."**

_With a jolt of surprise, Syaoran realized that the ghost could hear his thoughts._

It's rare that anyone has a say in what's to come,_ he thought his reply to the ghost._ Save for a few special people, born lucky. _His mind drifted back to Sakura, and what she'd done for the group in Tokyo and Infinity._

I won't let my fate lie in your hands._He managed a small twitch of his finger._

_Well, that was a start._

**"You say that as if you have a choice."** _The bastard sounded amused now._

_He tried once more to get himself out of the snow. The more he tried the less it felt like inhaling water and more like inhaling liquid oxygen. He vaguely wondered why his soul was breathing in the first place, and if it was a bad sign if he suddenly stopped. All of a sudden, without any warning, the sharp stabbing pain in his head was back. Its force was ten times worse than all previous attacks combined._

**"You know," **_the ghost spoke matter-of-factly._ **"I might release some of the magic holding you down if you're prepared to cry and beg."**

_Despite the fact that he was rather scared and in pain and feeling rather hopeless, anger boiled through his veins._

Not on your life,_Syaoran managed to growl. He knew he couldn't give up and fade away._

_There was too much at stake for him to do that. Too many lives were hanging in the balance. But he just wasn't sure what he could do…_

-0-


	11. It's no use

_**A/N: After months of no updates, I finally give you chapter eleven. I really hope it's to your liking. A little bit more is revealed since I finally got my bearing straight but I might still need a few suggestions to finally conclude this fic which shouldn't be more than two chapters away at max. Maybe less than that. It all depends on my muse and what you guys can give me through your reviews.**_

_**Enjoy!**_

_**9 November 2010**_

_**A/N: Um yeah… So basically the first half of this chapter i.e. till Syaoran's POV it's the same as before but I rewrote the parts after that so please read. If you have any question, comments or suggestions, feel free to let me know.**_

"...Now I think about it, you're just like him..." He made a face, drawing his sword. "You're exactly like him." Fay didn't ask any questions. The ghost's brows furrowed as he suddenly lunged forward.

"You look exactly like the one who killed me!"

_Fay jumped out of the way, the sword slicing nothing but thin air. He felt strength return to his limbs as he moved. He rolled on the frozen ground to avoid being cut in half as the ghost hacked at him with the bloodied sword._

_He could feel Syaoran's spirit buried beneath the snow but he knew that the boy was weakening. It was almost as if the snow was draining the teen of his spiritual energy, it was either that or the spell that the ghost had used on him. But whatever the reason was, Fay knew that his young companion did not have much time left._

_He had to end this quickly if he hoped to save the boy and himself._

"_Just because I _look_ like the one who killed you doesn't mean that I did." Fay spat as he took up a stance, his body growing stronger with each passing second. "But I wouldn't mind being the one to destroy you either."_

"_You and your companions are the only ones who will be destroyed." The ghost shot forward once again. But Fai dodged to the incoming thrust by flipping to the right. As the ghost advanced once again, he retaliated by swiping his clawed hands at the apparition's neck but the dead hunter managed to avoid the hit with surprisingly fast reflexes._

Hang on Syaoran-kun._ He thought, mentally willing the boy to do just that._

-0-

Kurogane let a low growl emanate from his throat as he stared at the possessed form of his student. On the other side of the hall, the amber eyed boy was also observing him with a frown settled on his face.

The ninja could feel his own, sticky blood flow down the length of his right arm but he ignored it.

_Damn that ghost!_ He loosened and then tightened his grip on the sword in his hand. Across from him, Kurogane could see the 'Syaoran' bleed from his shoulder where he had managed to nick him. Actually, he hadn't really been aiming to injure the kid or rather, kid's body. But for some reason, the ghost seemed to enjoy the look of rage that would cross Kurogane's face every time he would purposely let his apprentice's body get injured.

_Where the hell are you Manju._ He thought, shifting his stance ever so slightly before charging once again. He had to find some way of bringing the boy down without seriously hurting his body. Funnily enough the ghost did not care if Syaoran got injured, in fact, the bastard even seemed to enjoy it. A low frustrated growl let loose from his throat as he locked his blade with that of his apprentice's. He had to put an end to this whole thing before it was too late. They were both growing weaker but the ghost was more than willing to fight him to his death, or rather till Syaoran's death.

He had to find some way to help the kid. He couldn't let it end like this. Not after everything they had been through.

"Overtaking your student's mind and making him come here with the vampire was much too easy." The ghost in Syaoran's body gloated in the kid's voice. "My revenge is going to be perfect. First, I'll get rid of you, then that blond vampire hunter turned vampire who killed me. After that, all I have to do is get rid of the soul that used to reside in this body and kill the Council. Then nothing will stand in the way of immortality and me."

"You are _not_ going to get rid of me that easily you bastard!" The crimson-eyed ninja roared charging once more, hoping that the white dimension hopping bunny would find the feather in time.

"We'll just see about that, won't we Kurogane," the boy before him smirked cruelly as he swung his sword, aiming for the ninja's neck. Said ninja managed to block it just in time. They both broke apart, jumping back several feet, chests heaving heavily as they drew in quick breathes. Springing into action Kurogane leapt forward once again, this time aiming to land a punch on Syaoran's face. Maybe if he managed to knock the boy out, the ghost would not be able to control his body.

However, with the quick reflexes that the boy's body possessed, the ghost blocked the punch before sweeping Kurogane's legs out from under him, finding nothing but air. The ninja leapt upwards, flipping over his student, however the boy in question twisted about, lashing out with a brutal kick. The leg caught Kurogane squarely in the chest just as he landed. Carried by the momentum of his jump combined with Syaoran's powerful kick, he flew backwards, tumbling along the ground.

"This is going to be even easier than I thought." Syaoran taunted, but the crimson-eyed man was already rising. His student charged forward this time, however, Kurogane easily stepped to the side, hitting the teen as hard as he could with the hilt of his sword at the base of his skull.

The impact floored the possessed boy.

Kurogane managed not to comment on the fallen ghost. No need to anger him any further to search deeper into the boy's memories for ways to defeat him. After all, Kurogane wanted to end this as quickly as possible, inflicting as less injuries as he could in the process.

-0-

Mokona closed its eyes, once again concentrating on the waves sent out by the feather. It was near here somewhere. It just had to find out where.

"Mokona can do this," the creature told itself as it looked around the crumbling room, "Mokona's friends are depending on Mokona."

MEKYO!

A particularly strong wave emanated from the feather making the magical bunny realize that the feather was somewhere in the Northern side of the room, possibly along the wall, or if it's luck was really rotten, maybe behind it.

Quickly scrabbling over a piece of rubble, the white creature hurried in that direction, "Mokona won't let them down." It said as it hopped closer to the wall where it had felt the feather.

-0-

_Syaoran felt himself lose all senses in the frozen wasteland even though he could feel the pain from his injuries in the world where he was fighting Kurogane._

_He did not even know if he existed in the former world anymore, having been buried beneath the snow with his whole body being wracked by excruciating waves of pain. _

_He watched himself going all out against his mentor and teacher. Rage intensified its hold on him when he realized the simple fact that it was not a different world and a different him fighting against Kurogane. Rather that was _his_ body and _his _sword clashing against Ginryuu. And it was _his _face that was grinning at Kurogane, taunting him to let him know how powerless he was because he was even able to save his own student and friend._

_Syaoran knew that his mentor was trying his best to not harm his body in the process of fighting the ghost but the ghost was using all the injuries it gained on his body to its advantage. The wounds were weakening Syaoran's spirit. If this continued, he really _would_ just vanish from existence._

_He had to do something. Anything._

_Anything at all…_

_People were depending on him after all. _

Sakura _was depending on him._

_Repeating the promise he had made to his princess when he had let her get frozen in time, Syaoran renewed his struggles with newfound fervor. He was going to free himself and help the others. After all, that was his mind and his body!_

-0-

The boy did not dodge the swipe of his blade like he should have and was rewarded by a nice long cut that started from his right shoulder to the middle of his chest. Kurogane was pretty sure he had nicked a rib or two as well.

"You bastard!" the ninja snarled as though he did not dare to attack him lest the ghost decided to meet it with his student's flesh.

"Give it up, Kurogane," the boy gave him a crazed grin, his left hand moving up to wipe off some of the blood on his face, successfully smearing it across his cheek. "Your apprentice is as good as gone by now."

"Tch." The red-eyed man grit his teeth in response, narrowing his eyes as he furiously wracked his brain to come up with some sort of solution. He was not going to lose Syaoran to a friggin' ghost of all things. They had come too far to lose to something that wasn't even alive anymore.

"Have it your way," the ghost possessing Syaoran shrugged carelessly before taking up an offensive stance. It did not seem to be affected by the pain that body was no doubt feeling. Smirking, the possessed boy charged forward, sword poised, aiming straight for Kurogane's heart.

Bringing up Ginryuu, Kurogane blocked the attack, despite the fact that this was more of the mage's fighting style than his own, Kurogane took up the defensive. He had a suspicion of where that pain might be going to but having no means to confirm his theory, Kurogane decided to not take any chances.

-0-

_Syaoran's concentration broke when searing, white hot agony flared across his upper body, starting from the top of his right shoulder to the middle of his chest. His eyes widened as the pain registered in his mind or spirit or whatever the hell he was at the moment. His mouth opened to let out a cry but like every other time no sound came out. He chocked and gasped, trying to breathe but no air entered his lungs. All he felt was the freezing, biting coldness of the snow he was buried underneath. The wetness seeping inside his mouth and making way to his lungs making his vision or rather non vision for all he had been able to see a strange amalgam of whitish blackness overlapped with the scene that his physical body could see, falter._

_As though the injury his body had received had been some sort of trigger, his vision of Kurogane's face began to darken, fading and merging with the waning snow threatening to freeze him in his entirety._

No!_ He found himself crying out mentally but the only response he received from the ghost was a crazed cackle._

**Yes! It's best to give up now, boy. You can't win against me.**

Never! _He tried to ignore the splitting ache in his head, the feeling of nails driving into his brain, the sensation of his skull being hammered open in favor of concentrating on breaking free from the ghost's hold on him. But one can only take so much pain before one reaches the verge of breaking, the point after which one just can't fight anymore no matter how strong one's willpower._

_For Syaoran, that limit was the ripping feeling of Kurogane's sword impaling his right side, all the way to the hilt._

**Didn't I tell you it's no use? **_ The ghost's voice cackled inside his head as Syaoran felt himself fade into nothingness. _**You should have begged me when I gave you the choice, Syaoran.**

-0-


	12. I WILL kill you!

_**A/N: Alrighty guy, I'm finally back with an update for this fic. I apologize profusely for the looooooooooooong wait but in my defense, my bunnies and musefor this fic, both abandoned me so no matter what I did, I still couldn't write down anything. But then one day the perverted bunnies attacked me in the shower and I ended up rewriting the end half of chapter 11 which then allowed me to write ch 12. ^_^;**_

_**So um… Yeah. Before you guys start reading this chappie, please go back to chapter 11 and reread it so that this chapter makes more sense.**_

_**If you've already done that, then…**_

_**Enjoy!**_

A boulder crashed inches from the spot where Mokona had just scrambled to, making the fluffy dimension-hopper pale. Had Mokona not moved from that place, it would have been crushed flat.

Taking in a deep breath to stop its tiny body from trembling uncontrollably, Mokona scuttled up the boulder's rough surface and hopped down the other edge to continue on its way towards the wall that it had sensed the feather inside.

-0-

_Hang on Syaoran-kun._ He thought, mentally willing the boy to do just that.

"_Give it up, Yuui," the boy corpse-like entity before him grinned wildly, raising the sword in its hand and taking up a very familiar fighting stance. Fai found his eye widening as the apparition of his long dead brother morphed into someone equally precious to him but someone completely different all the same. "I'm as good as gone by now."_

_Beneath the snow, Syaoran's aura grew fainter and fainter, the energy flowing out of the snow and into the grinning amber-eyed boy that raced forward to attack him. He barely had time to react before the gold-hilted sword was thrust at his heart. It was all due to his quick reflexes and vampire speed that he was able to dodge the incoming attack._

_He let his jaw set in grim determination as Fai finally understood what had just transpired. He felt his eye stinging yet he blinked the wetness away before it had a chance to gather._

"_Bastard." The ex-mage hissed venomously as he brought out his claws, an expression pure unadultered hate adorning his normally kind features. The fury emanating off his lithe frame was colder than the snow that surrounded them._

"_So you finally understand what I did," the ghost said casually as he spun around and brought around its leg in a round house kick, followed by the whoosh of the blade slicing through the air. The blond flipped out of the way, jumping back a couple of feet to put some distance between himself and his opponent._

"_I'll kill you," Fai growled low in his throat before taking on the offensive, a small part of him commenting on how this style of fighting was more suited to a certain red-eyed ninja. "Even if it's the last thing that I do," he raced forward to meet the ghost halfway, "I _will _kill you!"_

_Syaoran's face only grinned in sick, twisted pleasure as he clashed his sword against Fai's vampire claws._

"_I'd love to see you try," he taunted ducking under a swipe aimed for his head._

"_I'll fucking kill you!" Fai yelled as he unleashed a flurry of swipes and kicks._

Syaoran-kun… I'm so sorry.

-0-

"Almost there." Mokona muttered, reaching out towards the pink orb that was floating just a foot above the stone casket that was buried inside the wall. The dimension hopper thought it strange for the people living there to have buried someone inside a wall of their own home but perhaps it was a custom of some sorts? Syaoran had been the one researching about this world's history so it would make sure to ask him once this whole mess was over.

The ground rumbled and dust and debris rained from the roof, small stones hitting Mokona on the head making the dimension hopper jump out of the way just in time to avoid being crushed by yet another giant boulder. What was it with boulders wanting to crush Mokona? Couldn't they fall a few feet _away_ from where it was? It was almost like the castle itself was conspiring to murder it.

"Mokona won't give up." The bejeweled rabbit declared in determination that could rival Syaoran's as it jumped in an attempt to pluck the feather out of the air where it floated above the casket. Unfortunately just a couple of seconds before Mokona's stubby paws could close around it, the feather emitted a blinding glow and vanished into thin air.

-0-

Kurogane's sword had impaled Syaoran's side and for once, that did have an effect on the possessed boy. Just as Kurogane pulled out the sword, the amber-eyed boy crumpled in an unmoving heap at the ninja's feet. He could only watch in horror as the younger male fell in slow motion.

"Kid!" cursing violently, Kurogane bent down, ignoring his heart as it beat wildly against his chest. Syaoran wasn't moving and he wasn't breathing. Ignoring the feeling of dread clawing at his insides, he placed his hand on the boy's throat feeling for a pulse.

He found none.

"Kid!" Kurogane had never been one to turn away from the truth when it was staring him in the face but for once, just this once the seasoned ninja could not bring himself about to believe that he had just friggin' killed the boy he was supposed to be saving. "Oye!"

His heart nearly jumped in his throat when all of a sudden, Syaoran drew in a shuddering gasp before letting out a heart wrenching cry as his body began to convulse violently.

Then as soon as it had started he fell limp again. Kurogane reached out with his hand and checked for a pulse, heaving out a relieved sigh when he felt it beating strongly beneath his fingers. Syaoran's chest rose and fell steadily, almost as if he had not stopped breathing in the first place.

A deep greenish glow surrounded his body as the injuries on younger boy's body began to fade into his flesh. Though the blood that stained his skin and his torn clothes remained where it was the wounds themselves healed and closed, leaving behind no scars whatsoever.

Kurogane watched with bated breath as slowly but surely the pair of amber eyes fluttered open.

"K-Kurogane-san?"

-0-

Confused, Mokona landed on its feet, concentrating to sense the feather's new location, its eyes going wide with 'MEKYO!' as it found it. As soon as the feather's new location registered in its mind a gasp emitted from Mokona's mouth as it glanced back worriedly in the direction Mokona knew Kurogane was fighting against a possessed Syaoran.

"Syaoran…" Mokona whimpered as tears began to gather in its eyes. The castle rumbled again and Mokona hurried to scramble out of the hole inside the wall that it had climbed into a short while ago. However, it seemed like the castle really did have something against the magical being because right before it could jump out into the room that part of the castle crumbled burying Mokona alive underneath the wreckage.

-0-

"Kid," Kurogane could not help but smile. The kid was okay. He was alive. He was- Kurogane saw a quick movement out of the corner of his eye and it was only thanks to years of training and quick reflexes that he managed to move out of the way of the sword that was thrust towards his chest. However since his guard was down, he had not moved away fast enough and his attacker managed to slash at his side, leaving a shallow gash that began to bleed. It wasn't anything life threatening but it still stung like hell.

"What in the world?" the ninja yelled in anger as he glared at the amber-eyed boy who climbed to his feet, sword in hand with the tip coated in a fresh layer of crimson. Kurogane narrowed his eyes and frowned at the kid.

Syaoran's shoulders were shaking in silent laughter as he doubled over, clutching his sides, his chuckles getting louder and louder.

"Letting your guard down so easily," he laughed, wiping his eye as he straightened up and looked at Kurogane.

"Some ninja you are." He spoke condescendingly, "Still, you managed to avoid my attack so I suppose you're not _that_ bad."

"Damn it..." the red-eyed man growled venomously as he took note of the crazed gleam in Syaoran's eyes. Quick as a flash, the boy shot forward, sword slicing the air as it moved towards Kurogane's torso.

"Did you really think getting rid of me would be that easy..." he sneered as the ninja blocked the attack and their blades came to a deadlock, "Kurogane-_san_?"

-0-

_**A/N: And that's it for this time. I hope you enjoyed it.**_

_**Any questions? Comments? Suggestions? All sorts of feedback will be welcomed so don't hesitate to let me know what you think.**_

_**-Nims**_


	13. Everything he did

_**A/N: I actually had this written out for quite some time now but I kinda forgot to put it up here. So I'll apologize for prolonging the wait but it's finally here so…**_

_**Umm…**_

_**Enjoy?**_

"_I wonder," the apparition before Fai said thoughtfully as he slipped under Fai's attack and rolled to his feet on the other side. "Would you still fight to avenge your precious Syaoran-kun if you knew what he did to you?"_

_Fai ignored him, in favor of swiping his clawed hand at the other's throat. The boy evaded the attack gracefully._

"_I have all his memories you know." _Syaoran_ grinned as he swung his sword at the ex-mage. "I know everything he did, all his little secrets, his biggest fears, his darkest thoughts."_

"_Shut up." Fai growled, narrowing his eyes as he noticed the change in their surroundings. The place he was in, now, was different from the icy tundra he had been trapped in previously. It looked a lot more like an underground cave with channels of water streaming down various rock formations to collect into a shallow lake in the middle of the cavern. _

_For a fraction of a second, he froze as he took it all in before flipping to the side, narrowly avoiding the sword that had been thrust at his heart. His lack of attention had nearly cost him his life._

"_I thought you'd like to see where it all started." _Syaoran_ spoke in a careless tone as a swirling mass of black frozen began taking shape in the air above the centre of the lake. "Tell me Yuui, would you try and take vengeance for this boy if you knew he was the one responsible for the death of your beloved twin?"_

"_You're lying." Fai snarled, ignoring the black mass that seemed to freeze in time. In the heart of that mass, he had been able to spot a flash of baby pink, a messy mop of auburn and a dull glassy emerald. He turned his back to it though. It couldn't be what he thought it was._

"_Oh but it _is_," the now amber-eyed ghost grinned in satisfaction as he took up a stance once more. "This boy you're trying so hard for is the reason why you don't have a twin anymore."_

-0-

"You're little student is the reason why you don't have your parents anymore," the boy before him spoke as he brought up his sword to block Kurogane's attack. "He broke a taboo."

-0-

"_He played with fate." _

-0-

"He turned back time."

-0-

"_And he thought it okay not to let you know."_

-0-

"He is just using you to get what he wants."

-0-

"_You can see the proof right here."_

-0-

"I let you see the place where he started it."

-0-

"_I showed you how he started it."_

-0-

"And you're still foolish enough to want to _avenge_ him?"

-0-

"_If I were you, I'd say he deserves it."_

-0-

"He'd been using you all along." Syaoran taunted, his eyes glinting with darkness, "He didn't give a damn about what may happen to you. He didn't care."

"You're wrong." Kurogane snarled, not wanting to let what the ghost said, get to him. "The kid is not like that."

"Oh?" the bastard had the gall to smirk, "then tell me, why didn't he ever tell you about his wish? His broken taboo?" his expression shifted to the melancholic, serious one that the kid always wore, "Tell me Kurogane-_san_, why did I never tell you that I was the one who got your parents killed?"

-0-

"_I mean, after all," he continued on in a matter-of-fact tone, "if it had not been for my wish to turn back time, it could have been that the legend about 'Twins of misfortune' had never been formed. Or your brother could have been born at some other time. Heh, maybe you mother and father might not have died the way they did." He paused for a brief moment, "heck, they might have even protected you two from everything."_

"_I'm the one who ruined your whole life, Fai-san." Syaoran said seriously, his gaze drifting towards the image of a seven-year old Sakura, frozen in time with her hand reaching out for someone Fai couldn't see. "It's because of me that you had to go through all the horrors no one should ever have to go through."_

-0-

Even though the one standing before him spoke just like the kid, Kurogane could no longer feel the essence of his student that had been inside that body. The small flickering aura of forest green that had been inside that body- like the dying embers in a hearth- was gone. It could mean only one thing. The ghost had overpowered his soul. The boy before him was not his student. The serious, kindhearted amber eyed boy that had joined them in Tokyo was no more.

The ghost let a smirk drift across his features as he saw the ninja clench his fist in barely suppressed anger. The older man's whole body was shaking with rage, his eyes glinting in bloodlust.

The ninja was furious. No. he was beyond furious. He was livid. He knew the red-eyed man had finally figured it out. Kurogane finally knew about what had become of the boy whose body he now possessed.

"Tell me Kurogane," he questioned smugly, as dodged the older man's retaliatory attack. "Do you still want to remember this boy?"

Letting the image that he had conjured using the boy's power fade away to leave the crumbling castle behind, the possessed boy rushed forward.

-0-

"_Knowing what he is responsible for," the apparition said, throwing out his left leg in a kick to the vampire's head, "would you still want to try and get vengeance for his worthless life?"_

-0-

"He is the reason why you are here today."

-0-

_Fai was breathing heavily, staring at the bloodied snow that had returned when the ghost had let the image of Syaoran's memory fade away._

_His face was hidden behind a curtain of blond bangs so the ghost couldn't really tell what was going through the vampire's mind but he knew one thing. He had succeeded in planting the seed of doubt in his heart. Just like that ninja's._

"_You sure love to talk a lot." Fai spoke, his voice soft, apathetic._

-0-

"Even more than that damned Mage."

-0-

"_But you know what?"_

-0-

"You're an even bigger idiot if you think we're going to abandon the kid."

-0-

"_So what if he broke a taboo?"_

-0-

"That doesn't make what happened afterwards his fault."

-0-

"_I could have still been born a twin. The legend could have still existed. My parents could have died in the same manner. Fai could have died then as well."_

-0-

"If I had gone through those things and asked to make the same choice…"

-0-

"_I might have done the same." _

-0-

"If it meant saving the one I had sworn to protect."

-0-

"_I would do it without a second thought."_

-0-

"And for that reason alone," Kurogane growled, glaring at the possessed boy through his narrowed eyes.

-0-

"_My answer to your question is yes," Fai looked up, his golden eye hardening like frozen gold, "I still want to avenge him."_

-0-

"And I'd be damned if I let _you,_" Kurogane snarled, finally ready to unleash his fury on the creature before him, "of all things stop me from doing that."

-0-

"_Despite what he did," Fai said, feeling the adrenaline rejuvenate his body as strength kept on returning to it. "Syaoran-kun was a good boy."_

-0-

"The kid didn't deserve this fate."

-0-

"_So now," Fai let a feral grin settle across his lips as his eye shifted to its vampire state, "You'll pay."_

-0-

"Owww…" Mokona groaned as it came to, feeling the weight of something crushing it lower body. Opening its eyes, the dimension hopper saw that the feather had escaped it's grasp, landing on the ground a couple of feet away from it. Mokona was still inside the hole in the wall, the roof having closed the entrance. But the soft glow emanating from the feather suspended in the air due to its magic was enough for the bejeweled rabbit to make out the long narrow passage to its right. That path _had_ to lead to an opening. Now if only it could somehow free itself from the rock trying to turn its lower body into flatbread.

"Hang on everyone." The magical creature whispered, struggling with its stubby paws to push the fallen piece of roof off of its body. "Mokona won't give up."

-0-

The chocolate-haired boy chuckled through bloodied lips as he spat some blood on the ground to his right. Now that the older man knew there was no hope of saving his student, he was going all out.

Summoning on the boy's favorite magical attack, he grinned. This was definitely going to be fun. He'd love to see just what exactly this new body of his was capable of.

-0-

_Fai grinned as he saw the four strips of crimson blossom on his opponent's chest. Even if he had not managed to score a very deep wound, he still knew it would be a painful injury all the same._

_Even if seeing the face before him hurt him a lot, he knew there was nothing he could do for the boy now. But that in no way meant he was going to let this bastard live. He would find a way to destroy this spirit, if it was the last thing he ever did._

-0-

_There was nothing here._

_Yet there was everything here._

_This whole place... It was full of contradictions._

_There was no light._

_But it wasn't dark either._

_There was no noise but he couldn't say it was silent._

_There was no pain here but it wasn't exactly numbness either._

_He couldn't tell if he was lying down or standing up or floating in this paradox._

_He didn't even know if he existed here._

_Wherever here was._

_Heck, he didn't even know what he was._

_Where did he come from? _

_Why was he here?_

_Who was he?_

_It was like there was a gaping hole inside of him. Or was it all around him?_

_He knew something was missing. Something important yet equally unimportant. He couldn't tell. There was a sense of urgency surrounding that feeling though. Like he needed to know what it was that wasn't there. But as he drifted in that nothingness, that urgency seemed to fade away. Like sand slipping through fisted fingers or water slipping through the palm of a hand, it trickled into the nothingness and became a part of it._

_Warm yet cool tendrils of wispy, liquid-like smoke pulled at him, calling him, coaxing him to join it, to become a part of it. There was nothing else that he had to accomplish anyways so allowed it to pull him in, letting himself sink into the shifting mass of smoky silver liquid. He felt himself begin to fade away and become a part of it, just like that sense of urgency. The cool but warm smoke began to seep into him, starting to become a part of him just as he was becoming a part of it…_

_**A/N: and THAT concludes the thirteenth chapter for 'What the Hell?'**_

_**Did you notice the slight change in my writing format? What do you guys think of that? I mean I know, I kept alternating between POVs rather too frequently but I wanted to try something a bit different to show how identical the events were playing out to be in both the worlds so I came up with this. I hope it wasn't too annoying for you people. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that so please, Review!**_


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